Time for DEFRA to act on red tape

Farmers are understandably sceptical when it comes to government promises to cut red tape.

Over the years, politicians from pretty much every party have pledged to tackle the burden of bureaucracy that farmers face on a day-to-day basis.

But despite the best of intentions you’d be hard pushed to find a farmer who feels the regulatory burden has been reduced in recent years.

Most are still left with the sense that planning laws are too inflexible, single payment scheme rules too complex and it can take days of research to confirm something as simple as where you are allowed to site your muck heap.

As for some of the environmental regulations, there are instances when farmers are left feeling they are spending more time ticking boxes than they are actually caring for the countryside.

So while it is positive news that MPs have this week given their backing to calls for DEFRA to change the way it deals with farmers, most are yet to be convinced it will actually happen.

The Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Select Committee, a Parliamentary group charged with monitoring the work of DEFRA, has effectively backed a report by the independent Farming Regulation Taskforce which calls on the government to establish a new approach to regulation.

Voluntary approach

The committee agreed that DEFRA should put more trust in farmers and, where possible, make use of voluntary initiatives rather than introducing regulation.

This is despite claims by environmental and animal welfare organisations that a voluntary approach can be ineffective.

The committee also said the government should pay more attention to end goals, rather than the process of getting there, and reduce government inspections on farms that are already part of an approved assurance scheme.

It all sounds like common sense. But what is crucial – and has been pointed out by the MPs involved – is that the government takes this advice and acts.

Action

Farmers have been enormously patient over this issue, but it is now four months since the taskforce published its 215 recommendations and over a year since DEFRA first announced the red tape review.

No one was expecting rules and regulations to be torn up overnight. But there will be huge anger if the taskforce report is left on the proverbial shelf to gather dust.

DEFRA minister Jim Paice is due to give an interim view on the taskforce report this autumn. It needs to be more than a holding statement – MPs have effectively endorsed the taskforce report as the right way forward so there is no excuse not to act.

Promising farmers that things are going to change and then failing to deliver is worse than not promising in the first place.

Editorial by FW content editor, Isabel Davies