The government of England should invest more in advising farmers on how they can deliver effective change in transitioning to more sustainable practices, experts said Thursday.

Executives from a university, a charity, and landowner organisations, had mixed reviews of the transition payments, while agreeing that farmers need more support through initiatives such as peer-to-peer learning.

Payments to farmers for sustainable actions are not working as well as they could due to a lack of support, said Julia Aglionby, a professor at the University of Cumbria, during an online Westminster Forum Projects panel.

“We need to invest heavily … investment in support really helps to deliver change.” On-the-ground, rather than remote, support can offer more insight, said Aglionby, in response to a question from Carbon Pulse.

“It’s about helping people … we need to have a change of positive culture going forward, rather than a penalty approach. The value of nature to society is enormous. It is a false economy not to invest in this.”

The budget for Natural England to have staff at sites in person is slim, with the whole of vast Dartmoor National Park only having three people – a “whole inadequate” figure, she said.

“We should probably have 10 to 15 members of Natural England or other advisors supporting farms. It should be the government who pay, because we will get better value from the money we are spending with farmers if [they] have the right advice.”

Farmers in England are transitioning away from a system of basic subsidies towards acquiring public payments for more environmentally conscious practices through land management systems via the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI), Countryside Stewardship (CS), and Landscape Recovery (LR).

Cameron Hughes, senior land use policy adviser at the Country Land and Business Association, noted how the government has funded a scheme to help farmers navigate the early years of the transition.

Free farming advice is available under the Future Farming Resilience Fund until 2025. However, Hughes said he would like to see its support improved, or at least extended beyond next year.

PEER-TO-PEER

Stephen Jacob, CEO at professional body The Institute for Agriculture and Horticulture, said the value of peer-to-peer learning was crucial for farmers.

“Farmers are very good at learning from other farmers, and that’s something that’s really to be encouraged,” said Jacob. In addition, consultants working across several farms could help support the system, he said.

Vicki Hird, strategic lead on agriculture at charity The Wildlife Trusts, said farmers need proper budget for training, in response to a question from Carbon Pulse.

“If we put investment into a demonstration approach on farms … that actually was funding farmers to train other farmers, how brilliant would that be? It doesn’t really exist at the moment, although a lot of farmers probably do advise [others].”

Hird was more positive about the state of sustainable payment take-up than Aglionby, saying the schemes were in their early days but were in a good place.

“I’m hearing about the really good way that the Department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs listened to the farming community and upped the levels of payments to actually recognise that [actions] need to be properly rewarded.”

However, Country Land and Business Association’s Hughes said it was too early to tell whether the sustainable payments system was working.

“We’ve only really had meaningful numbers of people apply for the SFI in the last several months or so. Although we might be coming to our fourth year in the transition, in my view it’s probably too early to really evaluate some of those actions that have been painful.”

Their comments follow a panel last month saying sustainable finance for farmers in England needs to expand to address other areas of the food system such as horticulture, carbon, and intensive livestock.

By Thomas Cox – t.cox@carbon-pulse.com

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