Defra has announced a new Agricultural Bill. The legislation was introduced to parliament on the 12th September and outlined the new Environmental Land Management system to replace the current EU Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) subsidy system for farmers and land managers as we approach Brexit. The aim is to produce a ‘green’ Brexit. The Environment Secretary Michael Gove explained, “This bill will allow us to reward farmers who protect our environment, leaving the countryside in a cleaner, greener healthier state for future generations.” The current subsidy system pays farmers on the total amount of land farmed which means the largest landowners receive the greatest rewards (the top 10% of landowners currently receive 50% of funding and the bottom 20% receive only 2%) rather than rewarding efforts to increase public benefit which may take place on smaller holdings in areas requiring the most environmental action or improvement. What are the benefits of the new policy? Farmers and land managers will be paid for ‘public goods’ such as improved air and water quality, better soil health, higher animal welfare standards, public access to the countryside and measures to reduce flood risk. Direct payments will be phased out gradually in the transition period from 2020-2027. Farmers will have additional support during this period to prepare and plan. To ease this transition and encourage diversification, payments during this period will be delinked from the requirement to farm the land for acceptance into the scheme. This revised approach is hoped to encourage farmers to diversify - or retire from farming and enable new people to enter this sector. Instead payments will reward the greatest environmental benefit. This move will be under-pinned by measures to increase productivity and future research and development to increase profits and lower the environmental footprint of farming. All farmers will see a reduction in payments with those who historically received the highest payments seeing the biggest reduction. This reduction in payments will hopefully provide funds to pay for public goods and a ‘greener’ countryside.
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