Jeremy's Blog 31st March 2023: Change and its Tensions
This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 30th March 2023
2023 is the pivot year for English agricultural policy, when its gathering momentum becomes real for farmers on the journey to a business sector without direct payments in 2028:
- Basic Payment rates are cut by 35 per cent from 2020; 50 per cent in 2024
- now paid half yearly, the payment this July/August 2023 will see farmers paid more half the total payments due between 2021 and 2027
- de-linking for 2024 breaks the 31 year old link between payments and current land and farming
- January’s Prospectus from DEFRA has outlined the range of the schemes being developed for 2023 and 2024 with payment rates, using the greater amount of money released from Basic Payments
- DEFRA should publish its Land Use Framework later this year.
In Wales, the Agriculture Bill is in the Senedd for the Sustainable Farming Scheme to start in 2025. The Scottish Bill is due this winter with climate change and biodiversity conditionality to apply first in 2025. Only Northern Ireland, without a government, is not seeing change – as yet.
For England, this year sees the last Basic Payment application campaign. SFI already has a rolling application process. Enhanced Countryside Stewardship is likely to move at least to multiple application windows. May 15th may become no more important than any other day in May, ending an age that began with the frantic mapping work of spring 1993, saw the depths of the 2005 chaos and needed the deferral to June that the CAAV sought for 2015 to work for the introduction of Basic Payment.
Members should prepare for the work that the new schemes will bring in appraisal, choice and applications. We are to have 9 SFI standards from this summer and the enhanced Countryside Stewardship scheme is expected to propose greater land use change. Environmental improvements will see more baseline assessment whether for carbon, nutrients, pest management or the condition of moorland – this will have to be managed and integrated with the other work of the farmer’s trusted adviser on schemes and more broadly.
We can see beyond today’s focus on schemes and grants to the role for the regulation that will take on from cross compliance. Hedgerows are an early gap. The Agricultural Transition Plan saw three rounds of the Slurry Infrastructure Grant, ending in 2024. As the deadlines for Government targets draw near, so regulation may be used more.
Yet, public
policy change should not distract attention from the business life of farming
and markets – the £22bn of income compared to the £3bn of ex-CAP money.
Change accelerates more broadly, conflicting with current constraints. While
waiting for the Government’s revised Net Zero programme today, the Climate
Change Committee has yesterday chastised the Government for not preparing
adequately for large scale climate change. Today’s statement may see
carbon imperatives bear more directly on DEFRA’s evolving policies as well as
on transport, buildings and other sectors. The constraints of
limited infrastructure, especially for electricity and water as key parts of
the response to climate change, may force real choices. While
renewables need connections, the power demand of data centres and now AI can
choke off other development; that of a TikTok data centre in Norway is limiting
the expansion of ammunition production for Ukraine.
The new era of change challenges us all.