Farmers and land managers will be rewarded for doing even more to improve the environment whilst producing high quality food and other products.
This page gives an overview of the changes to farming in England.
Cholderton is a 1000-hectare estate on the Hampshire/Wiltshire border. It participated in one of Defra's environmental land management test and trials to develop a model land management plan based on the exemplary principles adopted by the estate. In this guest post, Merrick Denton-Thompson shares his view.
In this post, I’d like to share what we’ve done to make Countryside Stewardship a more attractive option for more farmers as they plan for the impact of Basic Payment Scheme (BPS) reductions and subsequent removal.
We’re going to do a monthly Q&A session on The Farming Forum. In this post, I'll share our approach to Q&As and the upcoming themes and dates of future sessions.
I’m pleased to say that the Farming Investment Fund launches today. The fund provides grants to farmers, growers, and foresters (including related contractors) so that they can invest in the things they need to improve productivity and enhance the natural environment. In this post, I'll share how you can apply and find out more.
In this post, Emma Bailey-Beech writes about her background in agriculture and how it led to working on the Future Farming and Countryside Programme. We’re grateful to have people in the team with hands-on experience in the farming sector, and can bring it to bear on our work.
Farm visits are a useful way for us to understand the context in which farmers work and what’s important to them. In this post, I'd like to share what I learned during a recent visit to Challacombe Farm on Dartmoor.
In this post, we provide an update on the Farming Investment Fund.
One area we’re exploring in tests and trials is the role that innovative payment mechanisms might play in future environmental land management schemes. In this post we share what we’ve learned about reverse auctions so far in tests and trials.
If you want to encourage more of the right wild plants and insects on a group of farms, what parts of your farm should you target to get the best results? This is the question conservation scientist Dr Robert Hawkes explored with colleagues from the University of East Anglia, the Breckland Farmers Wildlife Network and Defra.
Last week I wrote a blog post encouraging farmers and land managers to take advantage of the free business support and advice on offer through the Future Farming Resilience Fund. Some people have been in touch to ask various questions about the fund. I wanted everyone to see the responses, so I thought I’d address them in this blog post.