As outlined in the Chancellor’s announcement, we have secured a budget of £2.4 billion for the next financial year. This means we can maintain the momentum of our environmental land management (ELM) schemes, which will rise to the highest funding levels ever by 2025/26.
In summer, we announced the 22 projects chosen for the first round of Landscape Recovery. We initially said we would recruit up to 15 projects, but we were so impressed with the quality of applications that we ended up extending this to 22. In this post, I’ll share more about the projects, including how they were assessed and selected.
A fortnight ago, we made full guidance for the new Slurry Infrastructure grant available on GOV.UK. I said I’d blog again when it was time to apply. I’m pleased to say that the first round is now open for applications and it will stay open until 31 January 2023.
Through the Future Farming Resilience Fund, any farmer or land manager in England who receives BPS (Basic Payment Scheme payments) is eligible to receive free business advice. In this post, I share the latest list of advice providers and explain how to get in touch.
We want to better support those who want to enter farming and develop land-based businesses. One idea that we said we were keen to test through a pilot was incubation: providing tactical support to young businesses through the early stages of development. We put out a call for proposals from organisations to lead these projects through the new entrant support pilot. The bids we received over the summer were impressive. Now that we have pilot leads, you can apply to take part in the pilot.
Applications for the new slurry infrastructure grant will open on 6 December 2022. To help you prepare, we've made the full grant guidance available on GOV.UK.
Yesterday, Rt Hon Mark Spencer MP, Minister for Food, Farming and Fisheries and Janet Hughes, Programme Director, Future Farming and Countryside Programme appeared before the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee. The session was part of a committee inquiry into the rollout of the new environmental land management schemes.
To celebrate National Young Farmers' Week 2022, Matt McGuire welcomes 3 up-and-coming young people in farming to the podcast. Charlie Beaty, Ed Dungait and Charlotte Garbutt discuss how to get started in farming, the importance of education and the range of roles in agriculture. They also discuss the benefits new talent can bring to the sector.
Following recent media speculation on the future of farming policy in England, we know that you may have some questions about our work. We’ve published a post on Defra's media blog which sets out our response and position.
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.
On 9-10 January we’re at the Oxford Farming Conference and the Oxford Real Farming Conference.
Come and say hello to our team.
On Friday 10 January, we’re holding a Farming Roadmap roundtable at the ORFC, which delegates are welcome to attend.
You can also find us at these agricultural shows and conferences in 2025.
