News

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 30th June 2022 The CAAV held its annual National Conference and AGM last week in Liverpool as a physical event for the first time in three years with all the opportunities this gives for members and the life of the Association. With the warm sunny weather that has often accompanied it, members and guests in pre-pandemic numbers met on the regenerated waterfront at Liverpool and visited the Earl of Derby’s Knowsley...

Update 30th June: Following further investigation, DEFRA has confirmed that Foot and Mouth and Swine Vesicular Disease have been ruled out, and the restriction zone has been lifted. DEFRA has announced that they are investigating an as yet unconfirmed case of Foot and Mouth in the Norfolk area. As a precautionary measure, an exclusion zone has been put in place. More detail - and updates - can be found on the government’s website. The CAAV will continue to update members....

SUPREME COURT GIVES DECISIONS IN CODE APPEALS The Supreme Court heard appeals in three cases under the Electronic Communications Code in early February: Compton Beauchamp - Cornerstone Telecommunications Infrastructure Ltd (Appellant) v Compton Beauchamp Estates Ltd (Respondent) Ashloch - Cornerstone Telecommunications Infrastructure Ltd (Appellant) v Ashloch Ltd and AP Wireless II (UK) Ltd (Respondents) “Queens Oak”/ On Tower - On Tower UK Ltd (formerly known as Arqiva Services Ltd)...

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 16th June 2022 The Government’s Food Strategy White Paper is better seen as it describes itself: “the beginning of this conversation”, largely focused on the production of food as a business. It may not cover all the social policy strands of last year’s Dimbleby Report and, while affirming the Government’s environmental targets, it was not the place for a full blown environmental presentation. Climate change and...

Edwin Poots has announced the re-opening of two forestry grant schemes for Northern Ireland:The Small Woodland Grant Scheme: support for new native woodlands of 0.2 hectares and larger.The Forest Expansion Scheme: support for native woodland, mixed woodland or commercial conifer woodland 'that can best meet land owners business needs whilst contributing to a living, working, active landscape.' Applications to the Forest Expansion Scheme must be submitted to Forest Service by 31 August 2022. All...

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 9th June 2022 The principle of equivalence has long lain at the heart of compulsory purchase compensation. Its inbuilt downward pressure encouraging resistance and so delay and extra cost for projects, George Osborne, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, put it to the Royal Economics Society only seven years ago that “We should change our outdated compulsory purchase regime. Both the LSE Growth Commission and Chambers of...

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 2nd June 2022 The argument that climate change will bring investment opportunities was sketched in this presentation, Why Investors Need Not Worry about Climate Risk, by Stuart Kirk, HSBC’s Global Head of Responsible Investment to an FT Summit – Turning Talk into Action to Hit ESG Targets – on 19th May. With that billed provocative title, he provoked and was then suspended from his job. Analysis shows banks, under...

Following an announcement in 2021 that part of the Yorkshire Wolds is being considered for designation as an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (see our website note of 25th June 2021), Natural England has now established a dedicated website for the proposal. The announcement comes after the Government's response to the Glover Report into protected landscapes (see our website note of 17th January 2022 for more background). As part of a process of consultation, members of the public will be...

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 26th May 2022 “Food security” may have differing meanings but one theme at its heart it is to ensure that we have an efficient, competitive farming sector, resilient in the face of the many challenges coming. Improving productivity, achieving profit, is not an alternative to environmental improvement; each complements the other. Improved soil health and farming efficiency in using nutrients answers both economics and...

The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy has called for evidence to support its annual tariff review of the Green Gas Support Scheme. For more details of the Scheme, see our website note of 23 December 2021. The call seeks evidence on biomethane anaerobic digestion (AD) plant and views on the biomethane market outlook from owners or developers of AD plant and others. Online submissions are due by 10 June 2022....

We have been advised that the Rural Payments system is to be unavailable from 5pm on Tuesday 24th May to 9am on Wednesday 25th May. Users should not access Rural Payments during this time in which the RPA is making critical IT changes for SFI 2022. This is in addition to the regular system downtime which will be from 6pm to 9pm on Wednesday 25th May 2022.

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 19th May 2022 Alongside food and energy, housing is part of “the cost of living crisis”. It poses a particular potent threat to the Government which, now with limited time to the next election, looks to answers for England in the Levelling Up and Renters Reform Bills. It may be disappointed as, having abandoned its recasting of the planning system, these seem to focus on symptoms, not causes. Pressures of prices, rents...

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 12th May 2022 England’s Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill was published yesterday, the day after the Queen’s Speech. Already 338 pages, it covers subjects from English devolution to “Combined County Authorities” to the power to review RICS governance and pavement licences. With a mixture of complex provisions and enabling powers requiring later regulations to give them shape, most aspects will require careful...

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 5th May 2022 “Government has set an ambitious new target to raise at least £500 million in private finance to support nature’s recovery every year by 2027 in England, rising to more than £1 billion by 2030.” (Nature Recovery Green Paper, March 2022) Those are large and round figures. Where might this money come from and why? How might any of this be defined and monitored? The three major current topics each have...

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 28th April 2022 In the third month of Russia’s gruelling invasion of Ukraine, its expected reverberations continue across the world, compounding already disrupted supply chains and gas markets. As a benchmark for world trade, the shipping company, Maersk, carrying a fifth of sea-borne containers, reports shipping volumes down 7 per cent over the last year but freight rates up 71 per cent. China’s severe Covid lockdowns...

The Sustainable Agriculture Capital Grant Scheme (SACGS) has now opened for applications. SACGS provides capital funding for businesses to reduce ammonia emissions and impacts on water quality resulting from the storage and spreading of livestock slurry and digestate. More background to the scheme can be found in our note of 19th April. The scheme is to close to applications at midnight on 1st June 2022. More detail can be found here: Sustainable Agriculture Capital Grant Scheme (SACGS)...

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 21st April 2022 England’s SFI 2022 opens in a few weeks as the initial SFI offer, using some of the limited funds so far taken from Basic Payment and mainly focused on the soils issues that can benefit both productive farming and wider public goals. The application process and other aspects are to reflect lessons from the continuing SFI Pilot with its exploratory role and wider range of standards. Further standards and...

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 14th April 2022 The UK Government’s new British Energy Security Strategy, responding to the rising energy costs of the last year and now the Ukraine War, is better seen as a snapshot of work belatedly in progress, at differing stages needing more development and with much implementation to be done offering little immediate easing. Our energy networks have anyway been expected to come under pressure this decade as old...

Scottish Residential Tenancies Consultation The period for responding to the Scottish Government’s consultation on residential tenancies, A New Deal for Tenants, with its proposed changes to the law on private residential tenancies and its discussion of tied housing and housing in agricultural tenancies has been extended to close next Friday, 22nd April.

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 7th April 2022 We are re-pricing the economy. This is not simply the larger impersonal movements of global commodity markets but the actions of suppliers and buyers, as each adjusts to changed circumstances. How far does each hold their ground or press their cause? What business adjustments does each make? What new things become practical? What old things have to change? This is perhaps still more an adjustment to a “new...

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 31st March 2022 “I used to think that if there was reincarnation, I wanted to come back as the president or the pope or as a .400 baseball hitter. But now I would like to come back as the bond market. You can intimidate everybody.” (James Carville, Political Adviser to US President Bill Clinton) From the Chancellor to the supermarket and from the farm to the household, present circumstances and the last few months show...

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 24th March 2022 Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has instantly removed a large supply of grain and oilseeds from markets immediately affecting prices in the already tight tail of the 2021 harvest. Forward markets seem to recognise that little may come from the Black Sea for the 2022 harvest. That naturally prompts discussion of food security though this means very different things in different contexts. From Joseph advising...

The Compulsory Purchase Association is seeking views from all those who undertake CPO work to assess the health and wellbeing of affected parties. The survey can be completed via this link.

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 17th March 2022 The immediate and multiple human and economic consequences of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine are reverberating around the world, further testing already disrupted supply chains and following the impact of the pandemic (still closing cities in China). With sharp movements in the prices and availability of gas, oil, metal and produce and consequent issues for fertiliser, there is much to consider in professional...

The 5th round auctions of the Woodland Carbon Guarantee Scheme will take place from midday on Monday 9th May to midday on Sunday 15th May 2022. The application deadline to take part in the auction is 11:59pm on Sunday 24 April. More detail can be found on the Government website. Our website note of 22nd November 2021 provide some background to the scheme....

The Basic Payment Scheme application window opened today (Tuesday 15th March) for 2022. Applicants have until 16th May to submit a claim. Guidance for 2022 is available here.

The Rural Payments service will not be available from 5pm Thursday 10th March to 9am Friday 11th March.

DEFRA has published a collection listing the various available streams of funding available to farmers. It can be found online here.

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 3rd March 2022 “There are decades when nothing happens, and there are weeks when decades happen.” A week ago, Russia invaded Ukraine unleashing an increasingly brutal assault against determined resistance in the breadbasket of Europe. The consequences, reaching far beyond Ukraine, are likely to echo for years. With the deaths, devastation and intended destruction of democracy and civil society, the early effects can...

The UK government has decided to grant an application for emergency authorisation to allow use of a product containing the neonicotinoid thiamethoxam for the treatment of sugar beet seed in 2022. This is in recognition of the potential danger posed to the 2022 crop from beet yellows virus. The full details of the decision, as well as the conditions of the authorisation, are available here....

Russia invaded Ukraine on several fronts early this morning. As well as larger concerns about global gas markets (with consequences for fertiliser), early financial reports see: Brent crude oil at $101 a barrelupward pressure on grain, soya and metal markets with concerns about the disruption to flows of commodities. Ukraine is a major grain exporter. Russia is a major producer of commodities as well as energy (while gas has been noted it is the world’s second largest oil producer) and...

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 17th February 2022 The chatter, energy and money intrigued by the talk of new environmental markets, as in carbon, can have the flavour of a gold rush in uncharted lands. Money and enthusiasm are pouring in but with considerable uncertainty about what can be bought and sold, what will have value and who will find that they carry risks when the mist lifts. Some may prove akin to the 1,350 tons of fool’s gold that Martin...