Britain’s departure from the European Union (EU) has given the country the chance to move away from the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and develop new agricultural policies and support schemes. And with agriculture being a devolved matter, that means the four nations of the UK are hard at work developing their own policies.
The Oxford Real Farming Conference 2024 put the progress made by the devolved governments on farming policy four years after Britain’s departure from the EU under the spotlight with an event taking stock of how the agricultural transition is going. The session was chaired by Will White, the sustainable farming coordinator at Sustain, and all four panellists were NFFN representatives.
The event started by setting out the political context in each nation and how this has affected agricultural policy. NFFN UK Policy Lead Phil Carson explained how Northern Ireland has not had a functioning government at Stormont for almost two years and praised the efforts of civil servants in ensuring some progress had been made on policy while operating in a political vacuum.
Denise Walton, NFFN Scotland Chair, explained how the government in Edinburgh had quickly responded to Brexit by setting out ambitious goals for Scotland to be a global leader in sustainable, regenerative farming and how the Agriculture Bill published in September 2023, which has been recently consulted on in Holyrood matches up to those lofty ambitions.
Rhys Evans, NFFN Cymru manager, explained that it has been a hectic period of policymaking in Wales, with the previous Glastir system being replaced with both the Sustainable Farming Scheme (SFS) set to be introduced in 2025 and the interim Habitat Wales Scheme, which is slated to run for one year. He also explained this is underpinned by the Agriculture (Wales) Act 2023, which received Royal Assent in August 2023 and adopted strategic land management as its framework for developing future policy.
Finally, Martin Lines, the NFFN’s CEO, explained that in England, post-Brexit thinking on agriculture has varied quite widely among policymakers, from the ambitious and widely-lauded aims of the Health and Harmony document unveiled by Michael Gove when he was Defra secretary to the current position which has seen the Basic Payment Scheme (BPS) removed and replaced with a ‘pick and mix’ list of options under the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) and Countryside Stewardship (CS) schemes which farmers can choose to opt into to receive money.
Devolution in agricultural policy may seem confusing on the face of it, with a patchwork of different schemes and approaches. However, as the event made clear, it makes sense, given the differences in farming cultures across the UK. Northern Ireland, for instance, has a uniquely large export sector, which is a point of national pride economically but comes with ecological consequences, such as the algal bloom in Lough Neagh, which focused political attention on the agricultural sector in 2023. Scotland, meanwhile, has the most significant percentage of its landmass made up of least-favoured areas and is also home to crofting, which has deep roots in large parts of the country and forms a vital cultural element of food production and land management.
A four-country comparison
In the agricultural policies and legislation being drawn up, there are both similarities and differences. In Northern Ireland, a baseline scheme to measure soil health has been successful in terms of farmer take-up by tying it to future payments. Phil said there is also a commitment to introducing a Farming With Nature package in 2026, but details have not yet been unveiled. Less positively, Northern Ireland is the only part of the UK lacking a commitment to domestic legislation underpinning its agricultural policy and setting out the principles behind how payments to farmers will be made.
Denise said the Scottish agricultural bill has four tiers. The first is a level of basic payments, the second is for enhanced basic payments, and the third allows farmers to get specific payments for mitigating climate change, while the fourth, which sits alongside it, supports peer-to-peer learning and knowledge transfers among farmers.
Meanwhile, in Wales, Rhys said the SFS scheme has a three-tier approach, starting with universal payments for farmers to deliver 17 actions such as soil testing, cover cropping, and hedgerow management. Farms in Wales must also have 10% of land managed as habitat, and 10% must be woodland or tree cover. Rhys said this, particularly the latter, is currently the most contentious aspect of SFS in Wales. On top of the universal payments, there are optional actions for farmers to go above and beyond the baseline standards by doing things like tree planting and creating new habitats. There is also a collaborative layer where farmers can work together on catchment or landscape-scale projects such as eradicating invasive non-native species and managing floodplains.
In England, Martin was speaking just hours after Defra secretary Steve Barclay had announced a further 50 options for farmers to choose from in the latest update to the government’s agricultural transition. While this was welcome, Martin said the overall picture of what money is available is becoming extremely complicated, with farmers having to look through some 300 different options. He said high-quality, low-cost advice for farmers is vital to ensuring they understand what support they can receive. “It’s so confusing for farmers to look at all this,” he said. “They need guidance for the right outcomes for nature, farm businesses and the climate.”
Martin also said it is vital to have schemes that recognise what farms can deliver across the whole of England and reward all farmers. He said not enough attention has been paid to upland farms, which are less productive landscapes for food production but can deliver hugely for biodiversity, climate mitigation and flood management.
Money, though, is a considerable challenge. Agricultural budgets are being slashed in Scotland and Wales, and in the latter nation, this has meant huge projected drops in support for Welsh farmers in the interim HWS. The panel pointed out that agriculture is now up against areas such as health, transport and social care, crying out for more money, and the messages of how important farming is must be clear.
Martin also criticised trade deals that have been struck with countries with lower agricultural standards than Britain, which has led to suggestions that products such as hormone-treated beef could appear on supermarket shelves.