{"id":269,"date":"2022-01-07T18:31:24","date_gmt":"2022-01-07T17:31:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.countryfile.com\/?p=106899"},"modified":"2022-01-07T18:52:21","modified_gmt":"2022-01-07T17:52:21","slug":"government-sets-out-more-environmental-schemes-to-reform-uk-farming","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbccountryfile\/rss_feed\/government-sets-out-more-environmental-schemes-to-reform-uk-farming\/","title":{"rendered":"Government sets out more environmental schemes to reform UK farming"},"content":{"rendered":"

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By Andrew Griffiths\n \t\t<\/p>

Published: Friday, 07 January 2022 at 12:00 am<\/p>

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More Government schemes that will radically change how farming and the environment are managed in the post-Brexit era have been announced this week. The latest schemes are directed at farmers and will see the management of water and carbon as much a part of the business of farming as the production of crops and livestock.<\/p>\n

While cautiously welcoming the general direction, conservation groups say that it could be that a \u2018historic opportunity is being wasted\u2019 to reform how farming is done in a post-Brexit landscape.<\/p>\n

The Government\u2019s overall aim is to bring farming activities into line with nature restoration and end the destructive practices encouraged by the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) when we were members of the European Union, which gave farmers the incentive to farm intensively with too little regard for environmental impact and rewarded them financially for the area of land they held rather than how they managed it.<\/p>\n

While these policies have seen agricultural production steadily rise, it has resulted in huge damage to nature, with declines of as much as 54% of farmland birds and 35% of butterfly species in these habitats between 1970 and 2017.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, only 14% of our rivers are now considered to be in \u2018good ecological status\u2019 as defined by the Water Framework Directive. A significant factor in these poor ratings is diffuse agricultural pollution caused by intensive livestock farming.<\/p>\n

The \u2018big idea\u2019 now is the Environmental Land Management Scheme<\/a> (ELMS) which is designed to pay farmers for \u2018public goods\u2019, rewarding them for their role as \u2018stewards of the natural environment\u2019 and the services they provide to society as much as for the food they produce, where in England they will find their income largely by operating in the market.<\/p>\n

The two schemes just announced are targeted at farmers: the \u2018Local Nature Recovery\u2019 and the \u2018Landscape Recovery\u2019 schemes. The Local Nature Recovery is to replace the existing Countryside Stewardship which has operated during the CAP era, but, the government says, \u2018with more ambition\u2019. It will pay farmers for locally targeted, smaller-scale actions that make space for nature in the farmed landscape and countryside, such as creating wildlife habitat, planting trees, or restoring peat and wetland areas.<\/p>\n

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Wild flowers promote insect biodiversity on farmland.\/Credit: Getty<\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n

The Landscape Recovery Scheme is bigger in scale and will operate over larger areas, and is much more ambitious in scope. This will require partnership working with local farming and conservation groups and will restore habitat by establishing new nature reserves, recreating floodplains to store water and protect downstream flooding as well as increasing biodiversity, and create new woodland and wetlands.<\/p>\n

Announcing the schemes this week, Environment Secretary George Eustice said:<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to see profitable farming businesses producing nutritious food, underpinning a growing rural economy, where nature is recovering and people have better access to it.<\/p>\n

\u201cThrough our new schemes, we are going to work with farmers and land managers to halt the decline in species, reduce our greenhouse gas emissions, increase woodland, improve water and air quality and create more space for nature.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tony Juniper, Chair of Natural England<\/a>, a body which will be heavily involved in making these schemes work \u2018on the ground\u2019 by helping to coordinate partnership working, said:<\/p>\n

\u201cCollectively, these schemes mark an historic shift in the way we manage our land, setting us on course toward the production of sustainable food at the same time as rising to the urgent task of halting and reversing the decline of nature.<\/p>\n

\u201cMore than two-thirds of England is farmed and these reforms pave the way for those who manage the land to produce healthy food alongside other vital benefits, such as carbon storage, clean water, reduced flood risk, thriving wildlife and beautiful landscapes for everyone to enjoy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meet Tony Juniper in the Countryfile Podcast:<\/p>\n