The spanner the government threw into the agri-environment works recently – that Environmental Land Management (ELM) might be for the chop – was not surprising for a scheme that has baffled and failed to engage many, despite its good intentions.
Those intentions, often restated by Defra, are to co-develop ELM with farmers, and bring it out gradually, so it can be improved as it goes along.
So when the version of the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) launched this year got a lukewarm reception, was government starting to panic about the whole thing?
See also: Minette Batters sets the record straight on ELM scheme
Or maybe, as the end of September approached, someone in government thought they’d just put the report of ELM’s demise out there and see what happened over the weekend.
Environmental lobby
Cue every environmental organisation threatening to march on Downing Street, farmers who’ve already taken part in ELM up in arms, and the NFU apparently approving it getting kicked into the long grass.
A clever plan? It blew the cosy consensus that appeared to have emerged around ELM out of the water.
Environmentalists were furious about the prospect of farmers no longer being a delivery service for public goods, while the NFU looked dangerously close to arguing for a continuation of CAP-style payments for nothing.
When government rowed back on the threat and talked instead about “improving” ELM, it took the wind out of everyone’s sails while still leaving massive uncertainty.
What and when might those improvements be? Can they keep both sides happy?
It is unlikely that anything less than ELM as originally set out will satisfy the green lobby, and government saying it wants to cut back bureaucracy and red tape that “slow down development” sounds alarmingly like it is scrapping protection of the natural environment.
Conversely, when government says it has plans to “increase food security while strengthening the resilience and role of farmers as stewards of the British countryside”, it leaves the door open for some kind of support payment in the mix.
But will even a tweaked ELM still end up as another complex scheme with too many layers, options and exclusions?
It is easy to please no one in this. Farmers who have taken ELM on board will fear a watering down, and those who only see their basic payment dwindling will scoff at anything that looks like token direct support.
Meanwhile, everyone is caught up in a maelstrom of soaring costs, labour difficulties, volatile markets and crazy weather that threatens to make any new scheme irrelevant.
BPS
A good time, then, to point out again that we have had a delivery system for years called the Basic Payment Scheme.
It is bedded in, it registers and maps every land use in every field, and it could be linked to the ELM Land Management Plan.
Register all land uses providing public goods – such as species-rich grassland, cover crops, water protection, access – plus any “whole farm” options and involvement with other farmers in bigger projects.
Set a threshold once enough public goods are provided to trigger a total support payment at whatever level is deemed right for the farm, farming and the countryside.
It is simpler, and it answers the call for both some kind of continued support to, and environmental delivery by, farmers.
As an improvement to ELM, a clever government would jump at it – so I guess it’s unlikely.
