Things we're doing
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.
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.
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.
In July, we opened the applications window for farmers to join our Sustainable Farming Incentive pilot. In this post, Lisa Applin (Rural Payments Agency) and Tom Lewis (Future Farming and Countryside Programme) share the results of the application process, what the team learned and what they will do next.
Earlier this summer, we said that we would launch the first competitions of the new Industry-led Research and Development Partnerships Fund in October. I'm pleased to say that we’re on track. The £17.5 million Industry-led Research and Development Partnerships Fund is the first of 3 funds to launch in the new Farming Innovation Programme. Applications for a share of this funding will open Wednesday 20 October 2021.
Although we’ve written about what we’re doing and how we’re doing it, we thought it might be useful to provide some rationale for our test and learn approach to designing and rolling out reform.
