Farmers warn of ‘dangerous future’ for UK’s food security as Defra unveils rewilding plans

The government has unveiled a £2.4 billion-a-year plan to overhaul the EU common agricultural policy, in which it will incentivise farmers and landowners to restore wetlands and woodlands to “work towards net zero.”

The reforms are the biggest changes to farming and land management in 50 years, and many farmers have expressed unease about the plans to discourage agriculture.

They estimate that the two new environmental land management schemes will play an essential role in halting the decline in species by 2030, bringing up to 60% of England’s agricultural soil under “sustainable management” by 2030, and restoring up to 300,000 hectares of wildlife habitat by 2042.

The Local Nature Recovery scheme will pay farmers for locally-targeted actions which make space for nature in the farmed landscape and countryside such as creating wildlife habitat, planting trees or restoring peat and wetland areas. Meanwhile the Landscape Recovery scheme will support more radical changes to land-use change and habitat restoration such as establishing new nature reserves, restoring floodplains, or creating woodland and wetlands.

The Department for Environment, food and rural affairs (Defra) argues that together with the previously announced Sustainable Farming Incentive which supports sustainable farming practices, they are designed to provide farmers and land owners with a broad range of options from which they can choose the best for their business.

Speaking at the Oxford Farming Conference today, Environment Secretary George Eustice will announce that applications will shortly open for the first wave of Landscape Recovery projects. Up to 15 projects will be selected in this first wave, focusing on two themes – recovering England’s threatened native species and restoring England’s rivers and streams.

Environment Secretary George Eustice said: “We want to see profitable farming businesses producing nutritious food, underpinning a growing rural economy, where nature is recovering and people have better access to it.

“Through our new schemes, we are going to work with farmers and land managers to halt the decline in species, reduce our greenhouse gas emissions, increase woodland, improve water and air quality and create more space for nature. We are building these schemes together, and we are already working with over 3,000 farmers.”

The government says that farming in England is moving away from the arbitrary land-based subsidies and the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy, “towards schemes that recognise the work that farmers do as stewards of the natural environment.” Defra is working in partnership with farmers to design the new schemes and support the choices that they make for their own holdings.

Local Nature Recovery is the improved and more ambitious successor to the Countryside Stewardship scheme in England. It will reward farmers taking action at a local level and working together to tackle issues such as water pollution by reducing run-off, mitigating flood risk by installing flood reservoirs, restoring peat or wetland areas, and adding trees and hedgerows to fields.

An early version of the Local Nature Recovery scheme will be trialled in 2023 with a full roll-out across the country from 2024.

All the environmental schemes will be voluntary.

Chair of the National Farmers’ Union Cymru Milk Board, Abi Reader, hit out at the plans via Twitter, writing: “At some point growing food alongside nature became a dirty word. It’s ok because when we can’t grow enough to eat here we can import food from other places round the world & reassure ourselves we have the upper hand on nature.”

She argues that “selling rewilding as the answer to all our problems” is wrong, as it encourages farmers “off the land” when ‘self sufficiency is already “falling” and rural communities are “fragile”.

Beef farmer Joanne Pile meanwhile warned: “We’re walking head first in to a very dangerous future of food security for this country.”