The Farmers’ Union of Wales (FUW) has responded to the latest Sustainable Farming Scheme (SFS) proposals following extensive consultation with its membership across Wales, stressing that whilst significant progress has been made some major concerns and obstacles remain.
In its response the Union highlighted that members welcomed the overall SFS framework proposed by the Welsh Government based on the principle of a ‘baseline payment’ for all farmers undertaking ‘Universal Actions’ which is not dissimilar to providing a ‘stability payment’ as lobbied for by the FUW for years, with additional revenue streams for ‘Optional and Collaborative Actions’.
Existing RPW Online data being better utilised and new data being collected through self-monitoring and new technology was also broadly welcomed, in order to minimise the need for advisers or complex and resource thirsty contracts which would dilute the agricultural budget. As were the design principles of the scheme which aim to ‘keep farmers on the land’ and recognise that ‘food production is vital for our nation’.
However, members raised a broad range of concerns regarding the scheme details, most notably the feasibility for large numbers to meet the 10% woodland and 10% habitat thresholds. This would be in addition to a hypocritically raised regulatory baseline for Welsh farmers through the introduction of National Minimum Standards at a time of increased quotas of imports produced to far lower environmental standards.
Recent years have highlighted how susceptible UK supply chains are to global emergencies in an incredibly unstable world. Farmers in Wales are also facing severe pressures with ‘agflation’ reaching 23.5% per annum in July. The FUW therefore welcomes the Welsh Government’s positive response to the Union’s warnings in previous consultation responses by committing to this baseline payment to provide vital stability.
The Basic Payment Scheme (BPS) currently represents 75% of the (CAP legacy) budget and makes up 80% of Welsh farm income on average, demonstrating farm businesses’ reliance on this provision, which allows those businesses to continue to produce food and environmental goods and operate at the centre of supply chains that employ hundreds of thousands of people.
With this in mind, members of the Union recommended that the majority of the budget should be allocated to the baseline payment and for the scheme to be a success, the Universal Actions must be practical and possible for the overwhelming majority of farms, including tenants and commoners.
Whilst the provision of a significant baseline payment was members’ key concern, the requirement for farmers to ‘have at least 10% tree cover on their farm’ was seen by many as being the most challenging ‘Universal Action’ requirement, whilst being completely impractical or impossible for many farms.
Particularly for those with a large percentage of their farm as habitat land, coastal land, land above the treeline, highly productive land, common land or tenanted land if the landlord either retains the woodland themselves or does not agree to a change of land use within a contract.
The Union response therefore highlighted alternative routes to reducing GHG emissions and increasing carbon sequestration on farmland - such as enhancing the 410 million tonnes of soil organic carbon currently stored in Welsh soils, focusing on productive efficiencies, or allowing additional habitat land (such as peatland) to qualify for any thresholds. Any overall losses to a farm’s productive capacity will impact negatively on current and future food security, therefore proposals must work with, and not against, the farming system.