The Tenant Farmers Association (TFA) has said that farmers in
England will be left feeling very worried following the
announcement of DEFRA’s Agricultural Transition Plan today.
TFA National Chairman, Mark Coulman said, “There is broad
acceptance that we need to change the way farmers are rewarded by
reallocating money paid through the Basic Payment Scheme (BPS)
into schemes targeting public benefits, productivity and
resilience. However, the announcement made by DEFRA today tells
us, with great clarity, how much we will be losing in terms of
the BPS without giving anything like the detail needed to
understand how this can be recouped through the new schemes”.
By 2024, the plan is that all current recipients of BPS will have
seen their payments reduced by at least half. Whilst they will be
given access to new schemes, no details of the payments available
have been given today.
“We have been over four years discussing these policy changes and
with only days to go before the plan comes into effect in
January, it is inexcusable that we find ourselves in the position
of lacking much of the essential detail. We need to have very
early engagement with DEFRA on how the new schemes will be rolled
out so that farm businesses have the information needed to plan.
Apart from what we know we are losing, the way ahead is far from
clear,” said Mr Coulman.
However, it is welcome to see that the plan does not repeat the
mantra of basing payments for the future Environmental Land
Management Scheme on income foregone.
“It’s good that DEFRA has taken on board the need to learn
lessons from current schemes and to develop an approach to
payments to provide a fair return to participants or else the
Environmental Land Management scheme will fail to deliver its
objectives. We look forward to working with DEFRA on developing
the payment mechanisms. This work must start immediately,” said
Mr Coulman.
