Small farms in national parks missed out on nature-friendly cash, warn MPs
The Government closed its sustainable farming incentive scheme to new applicants on Tuesday.
Small farms in landscapes like the Lakes and Dales lost out on Government cash for nature-friendly farming, Labour MPs have warned after the closure of a flagship payments scheme.
The Government closed its sustainable farming incentive (SFI) scheme to new applicants late on Tuesday, because the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) had allocated its budget for this year’s scheme.
Several MPs, including Labour backbenchers, called for “reassurance” that Defra would continue to financially back farmers who use nature-friendly methods, including insecticide-free farming, wildflower strips and managing ponds and hedgerows.
Food security minister Daniel Zeichner told the Commons that the Government planned to “redesign” the programme and said previous schemes had “no way of prioritising properly” the farmers who received support.
Labour MP Markus Campbell-Savours, whose Penrith and Solway constituency covers part of the Lake District, asked Mr Zeichner “to provide some reassurance to my farmers in Penrith and Solway that we are going to deliver”.
He added: “And can he also explain a little more about how we ensure that more of my hill farmers get into the SFI scheme which the last government failed to deliver on?”
The minister said that the Government would be “working with farmers and organisations to redesign the scheme”, with work “taking place over the summer this year and, obviously, once we’ve had those conversations, we’ll be able to announce exact timings”.
Julie Minns had earlier said it was “extremely welcome that under this Government, more money has been spent on schemes and more farms are in schemes than was the case under the last government”.
The Labour MP for Carlisle later continued: “However, there are smaller farms like those in my constituency of north Cumbria who would not have had their plans as far advanced as their larger neighbours along with their consultants.
“Can I ask him to outline what support will be available to those small farms going forward?”
Mr Zeichner replied: “The schemes we inherited had no way of prioritising properly – it was a first-come, first-served scheme, so the kind of farmers that she’s describing were disadvantaged.
“Now, we’ve had to work with a scheme that we inherited.
“We were very clear when I took over that we were not going to immediately overturn the existing system. We wanted to give people confidence about the future.
“But when we come to redesign the scheme, we can design it better to address the issues that (Ms Minns) has raised.”
Liberal Democrat environment, food and rural affairs spokesman Tim Farron, whose Westmorland and Lonsdale constituency also lies in Cumbria, told MPs that of 6,100 new SFI entrants this year, only 40 were hill farmers.
He asked: “Doesn’t this prove that because of the failure of the Conservatives in the last administration, the big landowners and the corporates are already comfortably inside the tent but the farmers who are outside are now locked out without warning, are Britain’s poorest farmers in Britain’s most beautiful places like mine in the Lakes and the Dales?”
Mr Farron also said the scheme’s closure would “outrage everyone who cares for our environment, for our upland nature and landscapes – it will outrage everyone who cares about food security, it will outrage everyone who cares about our tourism economy”.
In his response, the minister replied that this year “the full budget is being actually spent and that should be celebrated”.
Terry Jermy, the Labour MP for South West Norfolk, told the Commons that he could “find so many farmers” who were not accessing the scheme, adding: “Having spent several weeks and months encouraging farmers to access this scheme, naturally I’m disappointed with the closure and hope there will be a replacement in short order.”
Mr Zeichner said that “many, many farmers are now in these schemes and benefitting from them”, before adding a future programme could “properly be managed”.
Conservative shadow environment secretary Victoria Atkins had earlier claimed that the Government “sneaked this statement out last night, presumably hoping nobody would notice”.
She continued: “But guess what? The countryside has because the question that we are all asking ourselves is, ‘what has this Government got against farmers and the countryside?’”
Mr Zeichner replied: “It’s not a complicated thing to say that when the budget is spent, a responsible government responds to that. The budget has been spent.”
