WWF has launched a roadmap for regenerative agriculture in England with steps for expanding nature markets including ramping up biodiversity net gain requirements.
The roadmap, sponsored by Natwest bank, underlined that a “fundamental shift” in the financing of farming supported by public and private sources will be needed to ensure a fair transition towards more nature-friendly farming.
This should involve ‘high-integrity’ nature and carbon markets, in response to the “undeniable” increasing demand for their maturity, WWF said in its report.
Biodiversity net gain requirements, for developers to improve net biodiversity by 10% for each development, should increase to 20% for smaller sites, and up to 100% over larger greenfield sites, it said.
Market actors are watching the evolution of the law – mandatory from this month – as it could set a global standard for government nature requirements, while creating a market for biodiversity credits that developers have to buy off-site as a ‘last resort’.
However, many farmers are apprehensive in engaging with nature markets due to uncertainty around future developments, WWF said.
“Selling a credit prematurely may impact the value of a farm or potentially restrict market access for their produce, as a farmer may have sold off a valuable future asset,” WWF said.
“The lack of regulation in this environment is fertile ground for the creation of poor-quality credits that have little or adverse effects on climate and nature.”
Future trading for nature and carbon credits must be highly regulated, outcome-based, and backed by data, WWF said.
COLLABORATION
WWF called for an all-hands-on-deck approach across the UK food value chain to help farmers face the transition.
“The report argued that businesses must work together across the food value chain in order to fairly distribute costs and risks associated with the transition to nature-friendly farming, and that government intervention will be crucial to secure this,” WWF said.
Key areas for action include:
- Regulating emerging high-integrity carbon and nature markets to provide greater transparency
- Harmonising data for farmers to ensure consistent data standards
- Introducing new legislation to integrate policy decisions on food, climate, and nature in a way that places regenerative farming as a core solution to all three issues
View the roadmap:
Source: WWF
“NatWest is here to support our farming customers to transition to regenerative methods in balance with people and the planet. We have committed to £6.7 billion of total funding to the agriculture sector,” said Ian Burrow, head of agriculture at NatWest.
Canadian frozen good giant McCain Foods and NatWest are also collaborating to try to reduce financial barriers for potato farmers who are attempting to transition to more sustainable practices.
NatWest is offering these farmers better asset finance support terms, while McCain will contribute towards farmers’ interest payments on financing for assets that support sustainable farming.
By Thomas Cox – t.cox@carbon-pulse.com
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