Organisations warn UK Government of threat to nature from expiring agri-environment agreements

The long-awaited Farming Roadmap was published last week, setting out the UK Government’s vision for the future of English farming by 2050. It states that nature’s recovery and food production go hand in hand, and we couldn’t agree more. However, with thousands of longstanding agri-environment agreements set to expire this year, now is the time for the UK Government to make clear how it will support nature-friendly farmers who are affected. That is why we and other environmental and farming organisations have written to the Secretary of State Emma Reynolds MP, to ask her to make sure these farmers and the nature they support aren’t left in limbo. 

Many farmers take part in government-run nature-friendly farming schemes, through which government funds ‘public goods’ delivery, like clean water and recovering threatened species. These agri-environment agreements run for a set number of years, before they expire. We are concerned that this year, thousands of long-running agreements are expiring. Together, these have been protecting over 300,000 hectares of precious habitats for many years. 

If farmers can’t get a new agreement when their current one runs out, these habitats and species will be at risk. That is why we and our partners have written to the Secretary of State, to ask the UK Government to make clear what the plan is to ensure farmers can get access to new, ambitious agreements when their current ones run out. 

In the Farming Roadmap, the UK Government has committed to supporting farmers with expiring agreements to transition into new schemes where appropriate, but that not every existing agreement will be replicated. This is a good start, but a clear plan is now needed to ensure nature and the farmers supporting it are protected.

In our letter to the Secretary of State, we set out three key solutions to this challenge: 

1. Scale up access to the most ambitious scheme for individual farms, Countryside Stewardship Higher Tier, so more farmers can get agreements and manage more land in a nature-friendly way. This can be done by dedicating more of the existing farming budget to this scheme and by bringing in more advisers to support applicants. 
2. Make sure there is enough funding available, so enough agreements can be issued to meet our legally binding climate and nature targets. We know we need at least £3.2bn for nature-friendly farming in England each year to meet these targets, and current plans set aside approximately £2bn. 
3. Prevent “funding cliff edges” by allowing farmers to apply for new or successor agreements (where appropriate) before their existing agreements expire. Plans to allow this in the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) scheme this year are a positive step. 

Now is the time to accelerate support for nature-friendly farmers and land managers. Protecting and building upon the progress made to date for nature on farmland needs to be the foundation of this and to realise the ambitions set out in the Farming Roadmap.