Opinion: A chance to share my SFI views and ideas with Defra
© GNP I won’t flatter myself that anyone takes my Opinion pieces seriously.
But just before you were lining the cat litter tray with my last effort, you may have noticed that I was a bit rude about the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) and the fiasco it became.
Imagine my surprise when, three days after publication, I received an email from Defra’s Future Farming: Policy, Strategy, Legislation, and Devolution team requesting a farm tour.
Five of them came from as far afield as Surrey and Bristol and they were engaged, keen to learn about my organic system, and above all wanted to see what “public goods” they were getting for public money (if you remember that one, from six Defra ministers ago).
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The weather was perfect, my local bird and insect surveying volunteers came along to help, and I tried my best not to bore the whole party to death about organic farming.
Even the wildlife seemed on side – after five years of playing screechy swift “music” from speakers in my shed a bunch of swifts finally turned up and started their aerobatics two days before the visit.
Our Red List cirl buntings should be hiding deep in the hedges on their nests at this time of year, but one very obligingly flew past our trailer as we went round.
And when we got to the restored Second World War observation post on the cliffs a Spitfire soared by… I can’t do better than that.
I don’t have a clue what our visitors made of the morning’s tour, but they did ask for ideas for the remodelled SFI. And while it’s very easy to criticise, I don’t envy them their job.
Sure, I can bang on about organic farming all day, but a new scheme has to appeal to as wide a range of people as possible.
Although the later iterations of the SFI were somewhat naive, some of the options and intentions were really quite good.
It has been said that much of the blame for the scheme’s overspending and closure lies with a few egregious land agents trying to game the system, taking advantage of the generous lead times to undertake the actions and the initially unlimited areas for options such as bird food, which should plainly be a fringe activity and not part of a crop rotation.
However, I believe the underlying fault is with the system. The whole self-service, online, one-size-fits-all, mouse-clicking, wretched system.
Maybe I don’t know exactly how I’d design it, but I would put a lot of the administration in the hands of local co-ordinators who could help farmers with their applications and ensure that their environmental schemes are cogent and joined up with others in the area.
I would also involve “citizen scientists”. These people are everywhere, often retired and with a passion for nature and the environment.
Invite them on to your farm and they can make a massive difference to understanding what you’ve got and whether your environmental scheme is delivering results.
Engaging with local people also helps to reintegrate farms with their communities, boost the self esteem of the farmer and win the hearts and minds of some useful allies when the government next starts swinging the axe.
Surely this reconnection of people and place is one of the biggest “public goods” of all?