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Government launches ‘green Brexit’ consultation on future for food, farming and the environment

Mark Hamblin/2020VISION

Blog by Ellie Brodie, Senior Policy Manager, The Wildlife Trusts

Today, the Government launches a 10-week consultation on the vision for agriculture and land management in England called Health and Harmony: the future for food, farming and the environment in a green Brexit. This consultation – or Command Paper - will inform the Government’s forthcoming Agriculture Bill.

We believe that this is the first of three major pieces of legislation with massive implications for our environment, as the UK prepares for a future outside the EU. The second will be a Fisheries Bill. The third will be an Environment Bill, if we have anything to do about it. We are calling for the 2019 Queens Speech to commit to an Environment Act to establish environmental principles in law, ensure ambitions are set for nature’s recovery and set up a new environmental watchdog.This is all relevant because the land we farm does not sit in isolation. It is joined up to our towns and cities and seas and home to much of the UK’s wildlife. The sediment and chemicals that run off farmland not only diminish soil health but create problems for wildlife in our rivers and seas. If we manage our uplands badly our water bills go up because the water companies need to remove discolouration or pollutants. In the same way the solutions must be a joined up. We need a Nature Recovery Network to protect, join and create areas of habitat extending through farmland into our towns and cities and out to sea.

If we are to secure nature’s recovery we need a revolution in the way we manage our farmland
Corn Bunting

©Luke Massey/2020VISION

70% of the UK’s land area is farmed. Managed in the right way, this land can be home a great diversity and abundance of species - from barn owls and lapwing to marsh fritillary butterflies. Currently this is not the norm. But if we are to secure nature’s recovery we need a revolution in the way we manage our farmland. So this Command Paper and the imminent Agriculture Bill matter a great deal because they will set the context for decisions made by farmers and landowners.

The Wildlife Trusts broadly welcome the Command Paper and its focus on securing environmental improvement. It covers a wide range of issues including how we manage the transition away from the EU Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), international trade, animal health and welfare, fairness in the supply chain and supporting rural communities.

There is a lot of uncertainty for our wildlife hidden in all this. The wrong trade deals could have a major impact on environmental standards for example. But here I’m going to focus on one area of the Command Paper of interest to The Wildlife Trusts – how land management can benefit the environment – before outlining two challenges to Government.

First for the positive. The paper maps out an overhaul of the current subsidy regime, reflecting numerous statements by government Ministers - most recently Michael Gove. Key for us is that supporting good environmental land management is taking centre stage. A new environmental land management scheme, the Command Paper states, will be the cornerstone of agricultural policy in England and will fund activities that all farmers and land managers can do – things like improving the health of soil and water quality – as well as more targeted activities like restoring peatland, wetland and woodlands. This is the kind of scheme that The Wildlife Trusts called for recently in What Next for Farming? A future policy for land in England: investing in our natural assets.

But we have two challenges to government.

Challenge 1: Set clear goals for nature’s recovery - The Command Paper is not clear enough about the join up with the goals we need for nature’s recovery. Yes, a new environmental land management scheme must deliver ‘public goods’ like high water quality, more extensive natural habitats and clean air. But clearer aims and ambitions for nature’s recovery are needed. An ambitious Act of Parliament is required to clarify how goals for nature’s recovery will be set and monitored. The Natural Capital Committee, for example, could have a statutory role for setting targets for restoring soils or habitats. Mapping Nature Recovery Networks at a local level to join up habitats across farms and the countryside should help to define these aims and also help implement them. In this way environmental investments in the farmed environment can be integrated with planning decisions.
Knowing what farmland needs to contribute to the achievement of Government goals and a Nature Recovery Network will also allow the Government to allocate funding on the right scale. Independent research we carried out with RSPB and the National Trust estimated that based on just meeting existing domestic and international environmental commitments alone, the UK would need to invest £2.3 bn annually in its farmed environment – a fivefold increase when compared to existing agri-environment expenditure (£460m).

Challenge 2: Enforcement of basic environmental rules - There are real environmental risks hidden in the removal of direct subsidy that most farmers receive because there are strings attached to these payments. Farmers must comply with certain basic rules around environmental and animal health to receive their money – this is called cross compliance. Losing the link between payments and environmental standards is a risk and we have previously witnessed the ploughing up of field margins when there was uncertainty about the future of CAP subsidy payments.

Farmland hedgerow

The Command Paper states that ‘our high environmental and animal health and welfare standards are underpinned by robust domestic legislation’ but that we need a new enforcement system that is ‘fairer’ and provides ‘better value for money’. Whilst we welcome the review of the farm inspections regime announced last week, and reiterated in the Command Paper, we will press the Government to ensure that existing rules for farmers and land managers claiming subsidy are indeed replaced with a better mechanism. This mechanism must link to delivering a Nature Recovery Network across the farmed landscape, with every farmer playing their part in a national effort to turn the fortunes of our wildlife around as part of productive farming and getting the support to do it.
We will be responding to the Command Paper and sharing our response on The Wildlife Trust website. Please respond too – you can find the information and link here.

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