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CLA responds to Defra cap on Sustainable Farming Incentive actions
THE CLA (Country Land and Business Association) has commented on Defra’s new measures to limit the amount of land farmers can take out of productive actions under the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI). (See Defra Page for more information.)
Defra is to limit the amount of land farmers can take out of food production under the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI), a move the CLA has warned could hit take up. The department said that:- "while there has been only limited evidence to date of farmers entering large amounts of their land into actions that take away food production, some of these actions were being used more than intended in a small number of cases." The changes will ensure the scheme continues to support farmers to produce food sustainably alongside improving the environment, Defra added. CLA President Victoria Vyvyan said:- "Food production and nature are not binary choices. We have to do both. We understand the Minister's need to look at some of the individual actions again, but the principle of ELMs is the right one. Sustainability and farming must go hand in hand and the SFI (Sustainable Farming Incentive) is one mechanism to help us achieve that. SFI is a contract between farmers and the government to make sure we meet climate targets; something that's more critical than ever as extreme weather devastates farms. Introducing caps at this early stage may only delay Defra’s target of getting 70% of farms in land management schemes, hindering our ability to produce food while protecting the planet." Under the changes, SFI applicants will only be able to put 25% of their land into six SFI actions that take land out of direct food production. The actions are:-
To date more there have been more than 15,000 SFI applications, with 14,000 agreement offers made.
The Government is also setting up a new annual UK wide Food Security Index to capture and present the data needed to monitor levels of food security and says it will hold the Farm to Fork summit annually. More information regarding the timing of the implementation of the SFI cap will be released:- "in the coming weeks," it said.
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