Farmers must take CFE seriously, urges NFU
NFU president Peter Kendall has called for farmers to take the Campaign for the Farmed Environment more seriously or face a raft of bureaucratic legislation.
So far the campaign had not delivered satisfactory environmental benefits and compulsory legislation would be put in place if farmers continued this trend, he told delegates at the AICC annual conference on Monday (11 January).
“This threat is real. The EU is having a whole reform debate about greening of Pillar 1 and agricultural support and it won’t be something that becomes easy for us in the UK.”
There was a risk Entry Level Stewardship could be incorporated into Pillar 1 and more land could be taken out of production for environmental management, he said.
A large proportion of farmers and advisors were aware of the campaign, but too many believed they didn’t need to contribute, he added.
High cereal prices made this challenge even greater, as growers would be tempted to put awkward areas such as field corners back into production. But farmers needed to resist this temptation by leaving these areas intact and where possible enhance their environmental benefit, he said.
“If we can show we are professional farmers who are working for the long-term benefit of the industry, producing food for our manufacturing sectors [while looking after the environment] that’s got to be a good story for government.”
Some farmers were putting environmental features in place, but because they were not being recorded properly they were going unnoticed. He urged these farmers to register their activities with the campaign and asked all farmers to cooperate if they were called to carry out the CFE telephone survey.
“Go to the trouble of explaining what you are doing, explain where those bits are on the farm and how you manage them.”