Hundreds of ELS agreements threatened by DEFRA

Hundreds of Environmental Stewardship Scheme agreements will have to be amended or abandoned, following changes in the latest Rural Development Programme for England (RDPE), just signed off in Brussels.

Under Entry Level Stewardship (ELS), farmers have to commit to a number of different options – for example hedgerow management, low input grassland or buffer strips – for which they are awarded points.

The aim is to get at least 30 points, in which case the farmer is entitled to £30/ha in environmental payments.

But under the new RDPE, these options are being revised so that including “management plans” no longer count towards an ELS application.

There are four such plans being removed from the ELS:
• soil management plans
• nutrient management plans
• manure management plans
• crop protection management plans

The new interpretation is being applied to all the provisional ELS agreements entered into since the start of this year. Previous agreements will not be affected until they are renewed after five years.

The inclusion of a management scheme is worth two points towards an ELS application.

Natural England says that, of the 5400 provisional agreements it has issued this year, about 1800 will now fall below the 30 point threshold as a result of the management plan option being suspended.

It will be writing to these farmers in the coming weeks and aims to help them take on other options to get them back up above 30 points.

But affected farmers who no longer want to be part of the ELS will be able to opt out, without penalty.

The NFU has reacted angrily to the move, which has been forced on DEFRA by the EU Commission as a condition for getting the RDPE signed off.

“The removal of these plans, especially those covering pesticide stewardship and soil management, is deeply regrettable,” said NFU president Peter Kendall. “This change undermines the very spirit of the scheme. It simply defies logic.”

But a DEFRA spokesman said that the EU Commission had taken a clear view that these management plans did not go beyond what was expected of farmers as part of normal cross-compliance.

“They do not add anything to the legal baseline and it is wrong to use taxpayers’ money without getting anything extra in return.”