Opinion: Environmental schemes are hurting rural communities
© Gary Naylor Photography There are now more than 17,000 applications for the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI), and uptake is steadily increasing.
Link that with the Landscape Recovery Scheme and, from an outside perspective, nature recovery in the UK is looking very positive.
No doubt there will be plenty of bods at Defra congratulating each other on a job well done.
See also: Opinion – farmers are the climate change scapegoats
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We might well be back on our way to a green and pleasant land, but there is a downside.
Landlords are taking swathes of land back in hand so they can profiteer from environmental schemes.
While Defra’s recent announcement that new applicants can only put 25% of their land into six SFI actions that take land out of food production may limit this, it will come too late for tenants who have been offered money to give up their Agricultural Holding Act tenancies, are seeing their farm business tenancies (FBTs) not renewed as expected, or are facing eviction.
Friends of ours are in this terrible situation. Having been given notice that their FBT isn’t being renewed, they will be having a farm sale and exiting the industry within the next 12 months.
I’m not talking about retirement here; the couple in question are in their early 30s.
These are the very people we need to retain in agriculture – young, passionate and enthusiastic. But instead of drawing up their 10-year plan, they are heartbroken and desperately trying to navigate a way out.
The onset of lambing is only adding to the torment. Who can find it in themselves to plan an exit strategy when you are watching your flock give birth to the future?
For landlords it’s a win-win. Stick all your land in an environmental scheme, rent out the farmhouses on the open market and you are quids in.
Even I don’t need a land agent to tell me that will be more lucrative than a farmer on a successional tenancy.
But the hearts of our farming communities are being ripped apart. Farmhouses now stand empty waiting for fancy refurbishment when they were once full with families whose children went to the local school, who shopped at the village store and who drank in the local pub.
Whether or not this was an intentional outcome of a Conservative government looking to line the pockets of its already wealthy friends we will never know, but the effects on tenants are there for everyone to see.
It’s also incredibly worrying for our next generation. New entrants are few and far between already, and if you can’t rent a farm to get on the ladder, how on earth are you going to start up?
Unless you are born into a family who owns their farm, or you have a spare £3m in the bank, the likelihood of getting a foot on the ladder is zero.
In October last year, I went to a meeting with representatives from the Rural Payments Agency, Defra and our local MP.
I asked about the difficulties tenant farmers were facing and what was going to be done to protect them.
After a silence, I was told they were monitoring the situation. We all know what that means.
About 60% of land in this country is tenanted, so we can’t ignore the implications this will have on food security either.
Farmers are needed to deliver both food and environmental schemes, but getting the balance right is proving tricky.Â
The landscape will recover in time, but the families, communities and livelihoods of those affected most certainly won’t.