In this, the first blog post of the year, I’d like to share two updates with you and explain the rationale behind them. The first update is a change to Countryside Stewardship payment rates. The second is the introduction of the Sustainable Farming Incentive Management Payment.
In the second of our series of films from the Lake District, local farm facilitator Danny Teasdale took us to meet Jasmine Holliday. Jasmine is a Farming Officer in the Lake District National Park and she works on the Farming in Protected Landscapes programme. In this video, Jasmine talks about the ambitions of the programme, which type of projects can get funding, and what works best in the Lake District National Park.
In this film, local farm facilitator Danny Teasdale explains how environmental improvements go hand in hand with food production in the Lake District.
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.
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.
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.
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.
In episode 9 of the Future Farming podcast, Defra's farming strategy lead, Briony Turner, talks to land use adviser Harry Greenfield of the Country Land and Business Association (CLA) and farm adviser Lynette Steel, of the Tenant Farmers Association (TFA) about new environmental schemes.
It’s been almost 2 weeks since we opened the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) for applications, so we thought now would be a good time to share an update on how it’s going so far.
In the latest video in the series about the North Cumbria Farmers Group Test and Trial, uplands livestock farmers Steve and Colin explain their reasons for taking part.
