Tree Health pilot: what we’ve learned so far and how you can help

The Tree Health Pilot has been live for 8 months. In this post, we share what we've learned so far and include an invitation to owners of sweet chestnut trees and oak trees.
The Tree Health Pilot has been live for 8 months. In this post, we share what we've learned so far and include an invitation to owners of sweet chestnut trees and oak trees.
The Tenancy Working Group exists to ensure that new environmental land management schemes work for tenant farmers. The group is very keen to hear directly from tenant farmers and it has developed a survey to gather views.
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.
Farmers will be able to apply for grants to buy equipment, technology and infrastructure to improve the health and welfare of their animals. To make sure we are funding the items that farmers need to make a difference, we want to get a better idea of what we should include. Let us know your thoughts by the end of the month.
In the Sustainable Farming Incentive pilot, we provided farmers with 3 different land management plan templates. Each template was developed through tests and trials. Farmer Martin Hole took part in the Cuckmere and Pevensey Levels test and trial. He explains how the vision for his farm, and the landscape in which he lives, has been supported by land management planning.
The items for the first round of the Farming Equipment and Technology Fund were developed with farmers, industry groups and other stakeholders. We’re adopting the same approach for the next round. We want you to tell us which items should be included, which items should be removed and which specifications need to be updated.
We're developing schemes that reward environmental land management. To make sure that those schemes work in practice, farmers and land managers across England are putting elements of those schemes to the test. It's one of the ways though which we're carrying out co-design. In this video, the North Cumbria Farmers Group share what they've been doing to help shape the future of our schemes.
In the seventh episode of the Future Farming podcast, Tim Mordan, Defra’s Head of Farming Innovation, Productivity and Science talks to Rui Andrês, CEO of Fieldwork Robotics, about their innovative raspberry robot picker.
Today, we published our initial priorities for the Animal Health and Welfare Pathway. They represent some of the best opportunities for improving animal health and welfare we have across each livestock sector. In this post, I’ll share those priorities.
Recently we ran the first round of our new Farming Equipment and Technology Fund. We received 5,624 eligible applications worth a total overall value of just over £53.5 million. This is triple our initial budget allocation for the fund.