In the first round of Landscape Recovery, £12 million of development funding was awarded to 22 projects in England. This money supports plans to restore rivers, boost biodiversity and much more. The projects represent hundreds of farmers and landowners working together to deliver significant environmental change. One such project is the Upper Duddon Landscape Recovery Project, for which I am project lead. In this post, I will shine a light on our work.
This year, the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) offer will be bigger and more flexible. We'll start accepting applications for the new offer in a controlled rollout from August. Learn how SFI can provide a steady income, help make your farm more productive and support you to produce food sustainably.
The SFI annual health and welfare review is a fully funded vet visit which farmers can receive each year. With the help of volunteer farmers and vets, we started testing the review in September. In this post, I’d like to give you an update on what we’ve learned through testing. I’ll also share our plans for 2023.
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 this guest post, Dr. Julia Wrathall shares her views on the Animal Health and Welfare Pathway. Julia is an expert in farm welfare and served as the RSPCA's Chief Scientific Officer. She helped to shape species-specific priorities through co-design.
Some farming and land management activities are regulated to safeguard our environment and to protect the health of animals, plants and people. We do this through around 150 pieces of legislation, comprising primary and secondary legislation. All of this legislation applies to agricultural activity, and collectively constitutes what is known as the ‘regulatory baseline for agriculture’. This is a complex legislative picture and is not easy to navigate – we intend to improve and evolve this baseline in future as part of our agricultural transition outside of the European Union (EU).
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.
