Mitigating set-aside

Farmers look for a voluntary approach

02/03/2009

The saga of developing a worthwhile replacement for set-aside, which was lost in 2007, took another twist last  month when Secretary of State Hilary Benn announced he would give farmer and landowner associations a chance to come up with a voluntary scheme instead of Defra’s proposed mandatory cross compliance approach. All this postpones a final decision on something that needs to be in place soon so that farmers can plan for their autumn sowings. We have yet to see exactly what Defra’s cross-compliance proposals are. Over-winter they have been taking soundings on a variety of management options, some of which frankly, are pretty useless.

How much land is needed? Set-aside was last set at 8%, and we understand that Natural England are currently arguing that some 4-5% will be needed to offset the loss of this 8%. The key has to be deploying measures that are better for wildlife than most set-aside was. This means not only managing it better, but most importantly distributing it better too. Arguing to retain such a substantial fraction as 4-5% we think is unfair to farmers if they can’t grow crops on it. We suggested that a well managed 1% was about right.     

Farmers groups have yet to show their hand, but it will be difficult for them to persuade a decent majority of farmers to give up more land for conservation over and above what they already do under stewardship  schemes - all for no added revenue.