What will we say about this period between Brexit and the ending of the Basic Payment Scheme, (BPS), as we look back on it? That we gave up the money of BPS and accepted the golden future of Environmental Land Management.
Or that we chose to be more complex in an increasingly uncertain world and leave food production as an afterthought.
Anyone who reads Farmers WeeklyIf you attend farmer meetings, you will be well-informed about the opportunities for green cash in the post BPS world.
See also: Sustainable Farming Incentive 2022 – what farmers need to know
About the author
Paul Cobb
Farmers Weekly Opinion writer
Paul Cobb is a Kent-based independent adviser on environmental land management and a partner with FWAG (Farming & Wildlife Advisory Group South East).
It is difficult to understand the meaning of environmental terms such as carbon credits, biodiversity net gains, nutrient neutrity, and other terms.
That’s not all. We also need to understand Countryside Stewardship and the three horsemen in the ELM apocalypse.
People advertising these opportunities claim that the market has developed, and the money is readily available so why not take advantage?
Since long, farms have made money from environmental stewardship.
Maybe we will one day be able to look back on the time when this money for contrition was made as an age full of opportunity.
The uncertainty surrounding long-term income and contracts, doubts about allowing polluters and developers to offload responsibility, and the ethics behind taking land out of food production or driving farmers from it all create a great deal of uncertainty.
Add to that the insane input prices, shortages of labour, misapplied regulation and the overwhelming feeling that a government treats agriculture as a sacrifice for trade deals or a blank canvas on wilding schemes, and it’s no wonder farmers feel lost and confused.
There’s no better time than now to show support for farming’s contribution to the environment and food production.
We are letting it slip in diffuse, design as you go and needlessly complicated initiatives, cheered by an environmental lobby that feels its time is coming.
Progressive farmers have realized that agriculture is not an isolated process and have helped to normalize the environment.
These can be used to improve soil and water quality, and to integrate wildlife with farming. You can support it and the job it does.
These opportunities are not available in new marketplace environments. The equal distribution of funds across all three ELM tiers is a bad signal.
Landscape Recovery will offer few opportunities for farmers, and will leave them with poor-recognized sustainable farming options that will not replace BPS.
Looking back, we will see that we could have recognized food as a public goods because it is vital and the marketplace doesn’t reward it sufficiently.
We could have continued to support food productivity through a new BPS with an annual payment linked and dependent on both infield and wider landscape management options.
This support for agriculture would result in truly green outcomes.
It would be farmer-led, simpler than ELM and allow marketplace opportunities for their proper role as carefully considered additions, not life-saving straits to clutch at.
JK Galbraith, an economist, coined the term age of uncertainty to describe the contrast between the self-assured 19th Century and the turbulent 20th century.
In the 21st Century, life has become more uncertain. It’s time to restore the balance between agriculture, food and the environment.