Next week David Cameron has to make a key decision on how to spend £13billion of public money. This huge sum is destined for English farmers through the Common Agricultural Policy and will shape the future of 69% of the English landscape. The question Cameron must answer is: will the money be given to farmers who implement environmentally-friendly practices or will it be handed over as income support with few environmental strings attached?
The choice is between a healthy, wildlife-rich farmed landscape where hedgerows, clean rivers and our much-loved wild plants and animals co-exist with sustainable food production – or a countryside where nature, already greatly diminished, ebbs further into inexorable decline. In May this year, the State of Nature Report revealed that 60% of the species studied have declined over recent decades. Many of these species rely on wildlife-friendly farmland to survive.
The Government has two main decisions to make:
Big Decision 1 – Support for farm environment schemes
Farmers have made significant commitments to delivering farm environment schemes in the last 25 years. These schemes are restoring and connecting important habitats and bringing species back from the brink. They help to protect rivers and streams from pollution and protect habitats that store carbon. But budget cuts agreed in Europe mean these schemes are under threat. The Government wants to put things right and move the maximum amount allowed by Europe (15%) from the budget which supports direct payments to farmers, into the rural development pot (so-called ‘modulation’) which funds these schemes. Not everyone agrees and the Government could change its mind.
We want the Government to stick to its commitment to protect the rural development budget which supports farm environment schemes by making this 15% funding transfer. Once it has agreed its amount for the rural development budget the Government will choose whether to allocate an amount between 78-88% of the rural development budget to farm environment schemes. We want to see the maximum amount possible allocated to environment schemes, providing more space for nature and supporting healthy farmland ecosystems.
Big Decision 2 – Effective actions for the environment on all farms
As well as building on current successes and keeping the farm environment schemes going, more needs to be done in the areas that will not be eligible for such schemes. At best, future environment schemes are likely to cover 35-40% of the country, so other ways must be found to raise environmental standards across the whole of the farmed landscape.
The Government can choose whether or not to improve upon the standard ‘greening’ measures proposed by the EU that farmers will undertake in return for 30% of the direct payments they receive. For example Government could focus on measures that could do more to protect remaining flower-rich grasslands or link habitats strategically across the landscape. The best way for the Government to deliver the ‘greening’ measures would be via a special greening scheme for England.
Please see the Wildlife Trusts news release that was issued on the when the public consultation began: Bees, birds and hedgerows at risk: public must act to protect nature on farms
Debbie Tann 