Getting ELS right second time around

Renewing Entry Level Stewardship agreements sounds easy, but the removal of many popular options means the path is strewn with pitfalls. And it’s just as easy to find yourself regretting decisions later when they make management awkward, as Ian Ashbridge discovers

Many farmers and land managers across England are now faced with the dilemma of renewing their Entry Level Stewardship agreements, or entering them for the first time.

On one hand, industry pressure to unite under the Campaign for the Farmed Environment banner and see off the threat of compulsory set-aside will lead many to take up a pen and set about Natural England’s forms.

But equally, many farmers will be disappointed that the scheme that was designed to be “broad and shallow”, and open to all, is now far more restrictive than when it was introduced five years ago.

POINTS SHORTFALL

For instance, some popular options like soil management plans – which helped many a scheme towards its points total before – have been removed from the list. This isn’t pettifogging bureaucracy to make life more awkward – they now form part of compulsory cross-compliance rules, for example. But without these options, many farmers will be questioning whether the £30/ha return is really worth the effort.

Richard Means, a consultant with Strutt & Parker, has analysed the impact the removal of these options will have for some of the firm’s clients.

“It became clear that, when we looked at the first stage of renewals due on 1 July this year, the removal of management plans would have a considerable effect, and began to look through all our managed clients’ farms at Cambridge to see what the points shortfall would be when we came to submit new applications. Some of our clients had applied for all of the management options available.”

The net effect was that some of Strutt & Parker’s managed farms faced a point shortfall of up to 33%. And the least affected farms would still need to find about 10% of their points from other options within the scheme.

PRODUCTIVE LAND

The uncomfortable prospect for many is that to make up this points shortfall, they face having to choose the options which could remove useful land from production and lead to loss of income, removing significantly more from the coffers than ELS cash will replace.

But that needn’t necessarily be the case, says Mr Means. “A lot of farmers are worried about the number of points they will have to find to make up the shortfall and no one wants to take land out of production.

“But often there are some areas of the farm – it’s quite surprising how much – which were not in ELS and are really only marginal from a cropping point of view. What’s needed is a really thorough review of just what’s on farm.”

However, some farm businesses will not be so fortunate. But a thorough farm review can still pay dividends, he says.

“I visited one farm recently, and within a couple of hours it was possible to identify areas that could be put into ELS with minimal disruption to farm management and productivity.

“And if you take an average gross margin of, say, £520/ha for combinable crops – and I know that’s a pretty arbitrary figure – that’s going to be nearer £400/ha on difficult boundary areas. So a gross margin foregone by putting that area into field margins won’t be huge – particularly on margins where rabbits or sterile brome have been a cropping problem,” says Mr Means.

SKYLARK PLOTS

It goes against everything farmers have been taught to do for the last 70 years. Leave uncropped patches within productive fields? Quite apart from the view that land should be producing food, unsightly blank patches suggest a sloppy approach to drilling and invite sniggers from neighbours.

But don’t let a knee-jerk reaction hide the fact that these options can drastically alter a farm’s points total – and may provide the key to achieving that all-important target, says Mr Means.

“Skylark plots need to be 16sq m as a minimum – so 3m x 6m, or 4m x 4m. Although each plot earns only five points, on a per-hectare basis that works out at 3125 points/ha, compared with just 450 points/ha for sowing a wild bird seed mixture.”

An area of skylark plots, scattered over a farm’s arable area, could make this option worth the most points of all the in-field options under ELS.

“I do understand why some farmers are not keen – your fields are your shop window after all – but there’s not much too them once the field is established.”

ALTERNATIVE OPTIONS

Others may be able to tap into new options, introduced into the scheme this year. For instance, management of traditional farm buildings offers two points per square metre of ground floor area. “What’s required is to keep the buildings weatherproof and in good order – not necessarily to improve them,” says Mr Means.

It’s worth incorporating a fairly generous “buffer” into your ELS points total. Mr Means says. “Generally we advise farmers to have a buffer of 5-10% over their point total , and this year that’s more important than ever, as it will count towards farmers’ contribution to the Campaign for the Farmed Environment.

“It’s so important that the CFE target is reached. It shouldn’t be too stretching for most and it will hopefully prevent the reintroduction of compulsory set-aside,” says Mr Means.

*Campaign for the Farmed Environment’s call to action p45

*The digital edition of Crops magazine is out now – sign up and have it delivered straight to your inbox. The new digital edition features a special, in-depth look at CFE and ELS options and a points calculator. Go to www.fwi.co.uk.cropsdigital

CASE STUDY: Oak Ash Estate, near Newbury, Berkshire

Strutt & Parker’s Andrew Atkinson (left) and Mark Juniper manage Oak Ash Estate, near Newbury, and with the current ELS agreement ending on 10 September, they are preparing to tweak the plan for the next five years.

The total farm size is around 900 acres, with about 450 acres of arable land contract-farmed, and another 200 acres in grass. The balance is in older semi-natural woodland.

“The existing ELS agreement included Crop Protection and Nutrient Management Plans,” says Mr Juniper. “But to make up the point target on the new agreement we’ve chosen to put some more margins into wild bird seed (Option EF2) and nectar flower mixture (Option EF4), which fit in well with the shooting and conservation policy on the estate, and earn 450 points/ha each.

“This isn’t over complicated and we’re using a lot of the same options to achieve our points total,” says Mr Juniper. “It’s about choosing the right options for the estate.”