TFA warns of delays to ELM scheme rollout this summer

The Tenant Farmers Association fears the UK government could be headed towards delays in the delivery of parts of its Environmental Land Management scheme for England this summer.

Tenant Farmers Association (TFA) chief executive George Dunn says he is “seriously concerned” the Rural Payments Agency (RPA) is not ready to deliver on the level of ambition that Defra is demanding.

He told Farmers Weekly: “We are hearing one thing from Defra and another from the RPA. Defra thinks that it’s joined up with the RPA, but the RPA doesn’t think it is.”

See also: Defra adds six new standards to SFI scheme for 2023

Mr Dunn, along with TFA chairman Mark Coulman, met Defra permanent secretary Tamara Finkelstein at the NFU Conference last week.

He said they raised concerns that Defra and the RPA were not joined-up in their approach to the Environmental Land Management (ELM) scheme.

The current situation reminded him of the fiasco between Defra and the RPA when it rolled out the EU Single Payment Scheme (SPS) for farmers in 2005, when payments slipped into 2006.

“I’m worried that we are in the same position now,” said Mr Dunn.

“There has been lots announced. The January announcement about the forthcoming standards for SFI [Sustainable Farming Incentive], a 100-page document on Countryside Stewardship Plus, with the promise that farmers will be able to apply in June. 

“We have the management payment for £1,000 for the first 50ha, which isn’t yet being delivered. 

“We have got the Animal Health and Welfare Pathway, and we have basically been told we have got too many people, we can’t deal with the number of people we have got, so tell your members not to go onto the portal just yet because we have got too much of a backlog of people coming through. 

“We are having conversations with the RPA over here and Defra over there. We just don’t get what is going on [between them].”

Summer rollout

Janet Hughes, Defra’s programme director for the Future Farming and Countryside Programme, told a TFA webinar last month that the six new SFI options will be rolled out from this summer.

A joint spokesperson for Defra and the RPA said: “Defra and the RPA are working hand in hand to deliver the Environmental Land Management schemes and the RPA is fully prepared to support farmers at every stage through a controlled rollout.”