From 1 September, if you have land in a Countryside Stewardship or Environmental Stewardship agreement, but not on common land, you can now apply online directly by signing into the Rural Payments service.
Farmers in North Cumbria's Forgotten Lands are working with Natural England and Defra to help shape future environmental land management schemes. In this third video in a series of 3 about the North Cumbria Farmers Group Test and Trial, uplands livestock farmer and local history expert Barbara Smith explains how the group have been mapping the natural capital of the land, and the background to this history-rich area of north-west England.
Through our new environmental land management schemes, we will pay farmers and land managers to enhance the natural environment alongside food production. In this post, I'll share more information about how we expect Local Nature Recovery to work.
Over the past 2 years, the Foundation for Common Land, in collaboration with the Federation of Cumbria Commoners, delivered a tests and trials project to look at commons. In this guest post, Professor Julia Aglionby shares their work which explored how environmental land management schemes should be developed to support commons.
In the latest episode of the Future Farming Podcast, Cambridgeshire farmer Martin Lines and Sustainable Farming Incentive lead Jonathan Marsden talk all things Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) and environmental land management.
Local Nature Recovery is the improved and more ambitious successor to the Countryside Stewardship scheme in England. In this post, we’ll provide further detail on what Local Nature Recovery will pay for and explain how we will be working with you over the course of the year to develop the detailed scheme design.
In November, we started to offer agreements to farmers taking part in the Sustainable Farming Incentive pilot. In this post, we'll share an overview of the things we’ve learned over the past 6 months and how we’re incorporating them into the design of the full scheme.
As a farmer, I am only too aware of the financial pressures which force farmers to make short-term decisions to address an immediate need. This isn’t always ideal for the environment and the sustainability of farming in the longer term. The marketplace is very good at driving the efficient production of high-quality grain, meat, milk and vegetables for today and tomorrow, but less so at rewarding high water quality, great soil or increasing the numbers of birds and insects over time. In this post, I’ll explain how the Sustainable Farming Incentive will start to redress the balance and how it will reward farmers for delivering environmental benefits as well as efficient food production.
The Brooks Family joined the pilot to help us improve the Sustainable Farming Incentive. For over a century, the family has worked on South Thorness Farm, which is found on the north-west coast of the Isle of Wight, within the Hamstead Heritage Coast Area Of Natural Beauty. Listen to how sisters Jess and Sarah, along with their parents Adrian and Joyce, run through the management of their farm and their decision to join the pilot.
In February, we launched the first round of the Landscape Recovery pilot. Landscape Recovery is 1 of our 3 environmental land management schemes. To support potential bidders, we hosted a webinar to share information on the application process and answer questions from those thinking of applying. As you can imagine, we received a lot of questions on the day. In this post, we summarise some of the most-asked questions and our replies.
On Saturday 27 April, we are at J36 Auction Centre at the Beef Expo.
You can come and ask us questions at stand 249 in the marque area between 9-5pm.
Come and talk to us at these agricultural shows in 2024.
