Eustice pledges ‘generous’ payment rates for ELM schemes

Defra secretary George Eustice has pledged that future payment rates for the Environmental Land Management (ELM) scheme will be so generous that it will be a “no-brainer” for farmers to sign up.

Cross-party MPs from the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Efra) Committee quizzed Mr Eustice about Defra’s current plans for ELM during a parliamentary hearing this week.

It comes amid increasing concern in the farming industry that early payment rates on offer to farmers in England to join the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) – the first component of ELM – are too low.

See also: Independent group created to ensure ELM benefits tenants

Neil Hudson, Conservative MP for Penrith and the Border, said farmers in his Cumbrian constituency remain anxious about how the new schemes will work.

If payment rates are too low, they won’t engage in the new schemes to look after the environment and produce food.

Mr Eustice admitted it was a “bigger worry for government” because if enough farmers don’t engage, it won’t meet its own legally binding targets under the Environment Act, including a target to halt the decline in species abundance by 2030.

“The way we get the uptake necessary is by making the payment rates generous enough such that it becomes a no-brainer for farmers to take part,” he insisted.

Efra chairman Neil Parish MP warned that, by 2024, English farmers will have lost £110/ha from their basic payments with “very little to replace this”.

He asked the minister whether SFI payments almost as low as £20/ha were a big enough “carrot” to attract farmers.

Mr Eustice said farmers who engage in the SFI in year one, which will launch at the end of 2022, will be paid £25-£50/ha for improving soil health, and they can recoup almost all the money lost through the Basic Payment Scheme.

CS payments rise

The 40,000 farmers in Countryside Stewardship are seeing their payments rise on average by 30%, he added.

In future years, farmers will get paid for entering new modules of the SFI, including an advanced soils standard or hedgerow scheme.

Responding to Mr Eustice’s comments, the NFU said ELM payment rates must recognise the true costs farmers will incur for delivering these public goods.

Sustainable food production must also be a “central focus” of the schemes, alongside environmental delivery.

The Tenant Farmers Association said Defra should scale back funding for Landscape Recovery, which is less than 3% of the farmed area in England, but will receive one-third of the ELM budget, and divert it to active farmers under the SFI and Local Nature Recovery scheme.