£50m earmarked for rain-affected farmers in England

Up to 10,000 farmers in England are expected to benefit from a vastly expanded Farming Recovery Fund announced by Defra, with £50m made available to help them recover from heavy winter rains and flood damage.

And in a further move to help cashflow, Defra has announced that the second instalment of this year’s delinked payment (formerly the Basic Payment Scheme) will be made in September rather than December.

The first instalment will be paid in August.

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The expansion of the Farming Recovery Fund will benefit farmers who are expected to need to remediate land affected by both flooding and excessive rain. It will go towards the cost of recultivation, soil remediation and/or the removal of debris and pollution.

The scheme extension follows the initial launch of the fund in April, which provided grants of up to £25,000.

But the scheme then was only intended to help farmers affected by Storm Henk in January, and had a budget of just £2m.

It was also only available in certain specified counties and beside certain specified rivers, initially on land within 150m of the centre of the river – though that restriction was quickly dropped following howls of protest from farmers.

No application process

As with the original scheme, the new expanded version will not involve an application process.

Instead, the Rural Payments Agency will contact eligible farmers directly, based on their proximity to certain rivers which flooded, as well as those in areas which had more than 70% excess rainfall.

There will be a flat-rate payment, set in bands according to farm size, which will be made to eligible farmers this summer.

The minimum amount will be £2,895, so all eligible farmers will receive at least that amount, up to a maximum of £25,000.  

“This is an exceptional, one-off intervention to respond to the exceptionally wet conditions affecting farming this winter and spring, and in the context of the agricultural transition,” said a Defra statement. “There will be no a exceptions process.”

Response 

The announcement, made just before the proroguing of parliament on Friday 24 May, has been applauded by the NFU.

NFU president Tom Bradshaw said: “Against the backdrop of some of the most challenging commercial and weather conditions in living memory, which has resulted in plummeting business confidence, these measures will provide some critical relief.

“They will not solve all the issues we’re facing on farm, but I am confident they will go some way to lifting some of the immediate strain on family farms.”

Mr Bradshaw also welcomed a social media comment from Defra secretary Steve Barclay that an NFU proposal for a low-interest rate Farm Business Investment Loan was worthy of “further detailed consideration”.

This would include a 12-month capital repayment holiday, though further work on the proposal would have to wait until after the general election, he added.