Our country chairs have spoken about the importance of a bigger agricultural budget as we call for an annual increase to £6bn as part of our UK manifesto.
With agriculture having a significant role to play in the battle against climate change while itself transitioning away from extractive practices to more sustainable methods of food production, the need for higher levels of financial support is clear, leading nature-friendly farmers say.
“We need a budget that matches where we are now as a country as we transition away from direct payments to a system that supports sustainable, regenerative agriculture,” NFFN England Chair James Robinson said.
“We need to halt biodiversity loss, capture more carbon, engage more farmers and get more people back on the land. The budget has been static for several years, which is a real-terms cut with inflation and rising costs. We need a budget that matches the bold ambitions necessary for this transition to work well for farmers, the environment and consumers.”
Scotland and Wales are both currently working on the agricultural support systems that will replace the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). In both countries, there are concerns that not enough money will go to the higher levels of the systems under consideration, which will support more ambitious, nature-friendly farming.
Denise Walton, NFFN Scotland Chair, said: “We don’t need support to maintain the status quo because we know it doesn’t work and results in farmers leaving their farms, very poor mental health and high levels of debt.
“A transition to nature-friendly farming, properly supported by governments, will help to tackle all these issues and will also help us provide the holistic approach we need to essential issues like climate change, public health and biodiversity loss. The Covid-19 pandemic showed us how interconnected food, farming and our health are. We need an enhanced UK-wide agriculture budget to underpin the cost of joining these dots.”
Wales, too, is facing a concerning situation of agricultural budgets currently getting squeezed rather than increasing when farmers are being asked to provide a broader set of public priorities alongside food production. NFFN Cymru Chair Hywel Morgan said: “Many of the things government and society are asking from farmers are for climate mitigation, so we should be able to make the case for an increased budget to support those things in agriculture.”
“Even simple things like maintaining our hedgerows differently, looking after native grasslands, cutting out fertiliser or reducing inputs such as feed will help with climate mitigation as well as helping farms by improving soil health and building resilience for the future.”
The NFFN is also seeking to challenge any potential ideas that increasing the agricultural budget is unlikely or impossible in difficult financial times, pointing out that the returns and public goods from it would make it money well spent. The NFFN NI Chair Stephen Alexander said: “Securing all that we need from our land requires proper investment. We need an agricultural budget that matches our ambitions to restore nature, address climate change, and improve water quality. A budgetary increase would more than pay for itself in the public benefits that would result.”