Farmers face agri-environment payment delays
Farmers in England with land in sites of special scientific interest (SSSIs), special protection areas or other environmental schemes are facing lengthy delays in payments when they come to renew their agreements.
As Natural England moves to align the start date of all stewardship schemes to 1 January, those with agreements ending after 1 January 2015 must wait until the following January before they can renew.
As part of the alignment, farmers may also lose a proportion of their spring payment next year, which will be withheld and repaid more than 12 months after the end of their contract.
“This is a big issue,” said Claire Robinson, countryside adviser at the NFU. “There are going to be a large number of farmers with a funding gap and although we’ve raised it with Defra a number of times, they haven’t come back with a solution.”
About 8% of agricultural land is designated as an SSSI – and those areas make up 45% of all land in the Higher Level Stewardship (HLS) schemes.
However, unlike HLS, land in SSSIs is designated by statute rather than being entered into voluntarily by farmers, she added.
“SSSIs are very restrictive and make it very hard to farm profitably – but even with this payment gap, farmers cannot do what they want with the land, as it could breach the Habitats Directive.”
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Frank Langrish, who keeps 4,500 ewes and finishes 250 beef cattle a year at Ludley Farm, Rye, Sussex, has 243ha of marshland in an SSSI.
“Initially we were paid in advance for loss of profits – then it moved to one year in arrears, which caused all sorts of problems,” he said. “Now we’re not going to be paid at all.”
Mr Langrish’s HLS agreement ends in April 2015 – and he can’t start a new agreement until January 2016.
“Plus, Natural England are cutting our spring 2015 payment, and shifting it to June 2016 – at which point we should get our first payment for the new agreement,” he added.
“That means I’m going to have to increase borrowings next spring to pay for overwintering the sheep that I can’t graze on the SSSI land, and then have a double payment in June 2016, which has serious tax implications.
“Natural England have lumped SSSIs and special protection areas together with HLS for convenience, but I think they’re wrong. They’ve moved the goalposts again, which means we won’t get paid.”
However, a Natural England spokesman said there was no legal obligation to compensate farmers for SSSIs and SPAs, despite their national importance.
“Agri-environment funding is available to support farmers in achieving and maintaining SSSIs in favourable condition,” he said.
“The way in which existing HLS agreements, which end before 31 December each year, will be married to the new Environmental Land Management Scheme agreements is still under development.
“In the meantime, if anyone has any queries about their stewardship agreement and SSSI management, they can contact their local Natural England adviser or call us on 0300 060 0011.”