As part of a former farming family myself, I do fully recognise the valuable work done by our farmers, working farms, growers and land managers across the country to protect the natural environment. It is vital they have certainty in the financial support they can expect to receive from the Labour Government in doing so. My dad, who passed away almost 20 years ago, would be horrified by the situation now – even then, many years back, he had to leave farming and move into running another business for much of his life as it was so hard to sustain. I appreciate this is now a real choice again facing another generation.
Farmers have previously been supported in taking up and maintaining sustainable farming and land management practices through the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) scheme introduced by the last Conservative Government.
This scheme has been vital in providing farmers and land managers with funding for a diverse range of actions to protect and restore their environment, such as boosting soil health, managing hedgerows for wildlife, planting nectar-rich wildflowers and managing crop pests without the use of insecticides, which is why I felt the Labour Government’s decision to end the scheme for new applicants was so disappointing. While I welcomed the Government’s partial U-turn on its decision to close the scheme to new applications, the fact remains that the SFI scheme should never have been cancelled in the first place, and its future still remains uncertain.
Farmers had been promised 6 weeks' notice if the SFI was to be withdrawn. Instead, they were given just a few hours by the Government. It should not have taken the threat of legal action to force the Government to do the right thing and give the 3,000 farmers who had started SFI applications the opportunity to complete their applications.
The Government’s mishandling of SFI comes, disappointingly, on top of the cuts already announced to delinked payments for farmers, which it says are necessary to fund improvements to Environmental Land Management (ELM) schemes. While I know ELMs have proven valuable in supporting nature-friendly farming, many farmers rely on delinked payments and are already facing issues with their cash flows as a result of these cuts. Many farmers will likely have planned to mitigate the effects of these cuts by applying to the SFI scheme, leaving those affected even more in limbo.
We desperately need the correct farming schemes that will rightly pay farmers and land managers to restore nature while working with them to grow and maintain a resilient, productive and diverse agricultural sector over the long term but farmers are already facing major burdens forced onto them by this Labour Government such as the Family Farm Tax, which risks seeing farms split up and sold off and families losing both their livelihoods and their homes. The Government must now be upfront about how much support farmers can expect and avoid plaguing our farming communities with even more uncertainty.
We need a government that is committed to supporting our farming industry, prioritising both the country’s food security and our environmental ambitions – one that is alive to the many issues our farmers and rural communities are facing. Unfortunately, the Labour Government is yet to start listening and show they understand British farming and the countryside, instead of launching what feels like yet another attack on our rural communities. As the Official Opposition, we will continue to support, listen to and, most importantly, stand up for farmers, working farms and food security.
