As custodians of the land, farmers need much more support and advice to cope with change  

The past 18 months, the wettest since record began, have been a sombre reminder of the threat climate change poses to farming. Farms in England have been battling extreme weather alongside navigating the transition away from the old EU-style policy and into the  Environmental Land Management Scheme (ELM), which pays for public goods rather than land area.  

More than ever, this weather highlights the value of farms being diversified businesses that combine income from food production with the more dependable public goods payments for actions like carbon storage and flood mitigation. There’s still a long way to go in this transition, with approximately £1 billion per year still being paid out through the Basic Payment Scheme. But that money will gradually become available to ELM between now and 2027.  

There’s still no post-Brexit farming vision
Farming policy is an area where the next government will need to move quickly and decisively. Rightly, there is a commitment to phase out the Basic Payment Scheme which distributed half the money available to just ten per cent of farms in return for no public benefit. As it is phased out, that money can be channelled back in through ELM to support farms to do more to restore nature and cut carbon emissions. At present, little vision has been set for ELM beyond this year, so there is plenty of scope for the next government to shape the future of the scheme.  

In a new briefing, we set out six ways ELM could help to secure farm incomes while cutting emissions, doing more for nature and reducing pollution. As our previous work has shown, payments for public goods should be increasing the incomes of the least well-off farms. For instance, upland farms, whose land is well suited to nurture habitats and store carbon as it is not highly productive. But this doesn’t seem to be the current direction of travel. Defra’s income forecast for 2024 shows, for the first time, that lowland arable farms will secure more income from agri-environment schemes than upland grazing farms. Upland farms made, on average, £25,400 in 2023, thanks only to £19,700 received from the Basic Payment Scheme which will end in 2027. You would expect them to be doing much better than arable farms under a scheme seeking to restore nature at the least cost to food production. 

With this in mind, our recommendation is to set out a clear roadmap for ELM to help farms plan their businesses according to the opportunities available. We want to see a commitment to expanding the Landscape Recovery and Higher Tier Countryside Stewardship schemes under ELM as these are the better routes to creating viable businesses on less productive farmland. We want to see the Sustainable Farming Incentive element shift its focus to payments for measures that reduce environmental impacts without reducing production. More funding for capital projects and guidance on how to combine private and public funding are also needed.  

Resetting ELM’s future direction in this way should be rooted in evidence of what will work to deliver the government’s legally binding environmental targets while protecting food production.  

We should know how schemes contribute to nature targets
The government has set itself the challenge of halting nature decline by 2030. That’s only six years away and there’s no credible plan yet how to do it or how ELM, as an obvious route to achieve it, will contribute. Changes need to be made around the size of each scheme and payment rates to meet these targets. This evidence would also be helpful for farmers, so they know where they fit in, and so progress can be clearly monitored. 

To make the most of the opportunity ELM offers, farmers need better advice. Defra’s investment on this front does not match up to the changes needed to meet the environmental targets set. Good advice should be available to those farms wanting to combine environmental delivery with growing food. And this service should be underlain by a commitment to raise the regulatory baseline over time to raise ambition.  

Since Brexit, some of the regulations we once had to protect watercourses and soils have been lost, while the water quality crisis has only grown. The next government must plug these gaps so there’s a level playing field for farmers, and set higher standards particularly around water and air pollution. 

Already, this year’s weather has shown that safeguarding our environment is inseparable from food security. ELM is a rare opportunity to develop a fairer system to reward farmers for their important role in improving our watercourses, increasing wild species populations and taking emissions out of the atmosphere. This needs solid thinking now and delivery at pace. Without a plan, time will quickly run out and farmers will be left to struggle on in a warmer and wetter world, as the sounds of nature grow quieter.