Ministers invited to choose which wildlife plots must go

A Bedfordshire arable farmer has written to prime minister Sir Keir Starmer, Defra ministers and chancellor Rachel Reeves to ask if they might help decide which wildlife plots to rip up first.

It comes as a result of the Sustainable Farming Incentive 2024 (SFI) being scrapped.

Isabelle “Whizz” Middleton, who farms at Barton Hill Farm near Luton, had a draft application for the SFI in the pipeline for more than a month.

But, due to a system error with the Rural Payments Agency, she was unable to submit it, which now leaves the environmental work they do on the farm in limbo.

See also: Calls for Defra budget transparency after SFI closure

The farm had, until recently, been part of an award-winning environmental stewardship scheme, and some rare species, such as lapwings and striped lychnis caterpillar, had made a return to the farm.

However, that work is now in jeopardy.

“Thanks to all this, these [conservation] areas are now under threat,” explained Mrs Middleton in her letter.

“If we remove them, there will be an immediate, detrimental effect on both the wildlife and arable crops as they have a successful symbiotic relationship with each other.” 

Mrs Middleton asked the prime minister and other MPs if they might come to the farm to help the family choose which wildlife plots and grass margins they should rip up, which hedges and ditches to abandon, and what birds to stop feeding over the winter.

Educational guided walks and children’s farm visits might now also be put on hold.

High cost

“On Tuesday, we were just about to start putting in 20ha of wild bird cover crop,” said Mrs Middleton.

“We now need to decide what we do with that land. Shall we rip it up and replant with spring barley or carry on? This would all cost several tens of thousands of pounds.”

Losing the SFI scheme means the family needs to find a six-figure sum to continue the work.

“I have never been so upset and frustrated by red tape in my life,” Mrs Middelton told Farmers Weekly. “Conservation is just as important as food production.

“What was worse was the positive spin Defra tried to put on their press release – how do they have the guts to do it?” 

Asked if they would continue with the conservation work, she said they will.

“This is my life, it is in our blood – what’s sad is that there is a real knifing nastiness underlying all of this.

“We hope the next time they’re eating our wonderful British food, they might stop to think about the countryside and the farmers involved in growing and producing it.”