On Monday 4 December, we held a webinar for arable farmers and horticultural farmers in England to learn more about the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI).
In the webinar, we explained how SFI supports both productivity and the environment. From the actions for soils to the actions for integrated pest management, we went through the offer and people put their questions to us.
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Comment by Barrie Crowther posted on
My question is - " When did farming in this country become unsustainable? Who in DEFRA decided the new schemes would be beneficial for farmers ? I and many other farmers would love to know, Barrie Crowther
Comment by The Team posted on
Hi Barrie,
A big question - thank you for asking it!
If we take soil as an example. Our soils have degraded over the last 200 years due to intensive agricultural production and industrial pollution. A report by the Environment Agency says that arable soils in England and Wales have lost 40 to 60% of their organic carbon as a result, and climate change further exacerbates the situation.
The aims of all our schemes are to support viable businesses, maintain food production at its current level and achieve environment, climate and animal health and welfare outcomes. Farmers, land managers and foresters (among many others) have helped us to shape all our schemes so we have the best chance of developing workable schemes that meet those aims.
As that relates to the soil example, the production of good quality food depends on healthy soil and we can sequester carbon in well looked-after soil.
The Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) pays farmers to assess, improve and conserve their soils – which in turn means less reliance on costly artificial inputs, while creating significant environmental improvements.
This is just one example of how we think the new schemes (SFI in this case) will benefit farmers. The SFI handbook lists all the actions we'll pay farmers to carry out and the rationale behind them: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/654cdaab5d60950011bec867/SFI23_handbook.pdf or you can visit this page for an overview of SFI: https://farming.campaign.gov.uk/
Best wishes,
The Team
Comment by Richard posted on
where can I find the link for the recording? Many thanks
Comment by Sarah Stewart posted on
Hello,
It's in the post but for ease: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k32Rtj3TK_o
Best wishes,
Sarah
Comment by Amy Jackson posted on
Hi - are you adding the webinar recording to this post? The text suggests you will.Thanks
Comment by The Team posted on
Hi Amy,
We posted the video in a follow up post: https://defrafarming.blog.gov.uk/2023/12/27/arable-and-horticulture-webinar-follow-up/ but will add it to this post too.
It's also available on YouTube here https://youtu.be/k32Rtj3TK_o
Hope that helps,
The Team