UK farmers say Brexit promises of a green future have never materialised

The Government’s promise to usher in a new era of green agriculture through Brexit is failing as farmers struggle to access green subsidies, putting the UK’s climate targets at risk.

Some farmers say they are being forced to turn to less environmentally friendly methods of farming after leaving the EU, as delays to the UK Government’s new subsidy programme has left them on the brink.

Meanwhile, data shared with i shows a 77 per cent decline in agreements under one of the UK’s main environmental farming schemes over the past decade, raising questions over whether there is enough capacity with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) to deliver a green transition for agriculture.

During the EU referendum, Brexit campaigners won the support of many farmers by promising to transform the old EU system of farming subsidies, which paid farmers based on the size of their land, and instead reward them for work that promotes food security and environmental protection.

While support for Brexit remains high amongst farmers, environmentalists warn that the Government’s post-Brexit subsidy programme is failing to deliver on its green ambitions.

Called the Environmental Land Management (ELM) scheme, the Government programme is supposed to reward farmers for environmental work ranging from small changes to improve soil quality, to larger work aimed at planting woodlands and restoring habitats.

This concept is broadly welcomed by both farmers and environmentalists, but many warn the schemes cannot achieve their aims in their current form and are causing significant hardship to many farmers in the meantime.

“It’s certainly unclear how the ELM scheme in its present form will deliver our nature targets, particularly our climate targets,” said Lydia Collas, Senior Policy Analyst at the Green Alliance.

“We’ve done work looking right across the economy and we found that the agriculture sector lacks supportive policy more than any other sector to make the cuts that they need to make to hit net zero. That means farmers aren’t being supported to hit net zero.”

The ELM programme was originally split into three parts. The largest scheme, the Sustainable Farming Incentive, is available to all farmers and rewards lower level environmental work such as planting hedgerows and attracting pollinators.

SFI is considered to be the main replacement for the old EU subsidies, but the rollout has been beset by problems. Only 224 farmers received payments in 2022, while the 2023 scheme was delayed, meaning farmers won’t receive any payments until next year.

But a bigger fear for environmentalists is the lack of progress on the other parts of ELM, which are supposed to fund the most ambitious environmental work.

One scheme, called Landscape Recovery, which funds farmers to carry out long-term projects such as woodland creation and peatland restoration, is in the pilot stage, but currently accounts for less than one per cent of the Government’s total farming budget.

Meanwhile, Defra has scrapped plans to create a new Local Nature Recovery fund to pay for things such as habitat creation. Instead it said farmers will be able to access funding for this through a new and improved version of the Government’s existing Countryside Stewardship scheme, but further details on this are yet to materialise.

While farmers wait for these new schemes to get up and running, some have been turning to the existing Countryside Stewardship scheme to replace some of the income they have been losing from the EU.

But many of these applications are being rejected, with farmers pointed to a lack of capacity within Natural England to process agreements. This is a particular issue for the ‘higher tier’ of the scheme, which funds more ambitious nature work.

“When a farmer applies it has to be approved via a Natural England advisor. A lack of capacity on that side to process it has been an issue,” explained Philip Carson, UK Policy Lead at the Nature Friendly Farming Network.

“Speaking to farmers, there’s many who would be in a place to apply for it but they’ve decided there’s not really much point as they don’t think they’ll get an agreement through.”

‘Trees aren’t going to suddenly pop out of the ground’

Sam Vincent runs a farm Dorset. The land isn’t suitable for crops, so instead is devoted to pasture for 140 cows, a mixture of beef and dairy. 

Mr Vincent cares about environmental farming; in 2021 he won a Livestock Soil Farmer of the Year award, three years after he transitioned his dairy herd to organic.

So when he started to lose his subsidy from the EU, he decided to apply to the Higher Tier Countryside Stewardship Scheme to convert a quarter of his farm into wood pasture, meaning an area for livestock to graze that also has trees. 

His application also included the introduction of three hectares of traditional orchards and the restoration of species rich grassland.

But despite meeting the thresholds set by Natural England, the application was unsuccessful. 

“Obviously farms like ourselves are probably going to be required to do this stuff further down the line. So the sooner we can make a start. These trees aren’t going to suddenly pop out of the ground.

“Unfortunately it also involves Natural England to put a lot of work in and as we found out along the way, Natural England just don’t have the resources to take on all these applications,” he said. 

Without the funding, Mr Vincent said he will be unable to deliver the kind of land management needed for priority species found in the area, such as spotted flycatcher and the duke of burgundy butterfly.

Data obtained by the Energy Climate and Intelligence Unit, shared with i, shows Natural England processed 560 higher tier agreements with farmers in 2023.

While this is up from a pandemic low of 290 in 2020, it is 77 per cent less than the 2448 higher level stewardship agreements made when the scheme was first launched in 2012.

The Nature Friendly Farming Network is calling on the Government to increase the annual rate of higher-tier agreements to 3,000 per year. Mr Carson believes it will be impossible for the Government to meet its legal biodiversity targets, which requires it to halt the loss of species abundance by 2030, without doing this.

Emma Lee is one of the many farmers who had their applications to the Countryside Stewardship scheme rejected this year.

She and her husband, both first-generation tenant farmers, have been rearing rare sheep and a small herd of cows on her 120 acre farm in the Lancashire Moors for 15 years.

The business has never been hugely profitable, but they’ve always managed to get by thanks to the £24,000 per year they received from the EU.

But this money has already started to decline as part of the post-Brexit transition. This year she received £16,000, but by 2027 she will receive nothing.

“There’s literally no money in it,” she told i. “But it’s not a job. It’s our whole life.”

Ms Lee already adopts many environmental farming techniques, such as not using fertilisers. But she was hoping to receive extra funding through the higher tier Countryside Stewardship scheme to make up for the money she is losing from the EU and pay for things such as planting trees and hedgerows.

Now she may instead be forced to get an extra job to make ends meet and has had to increase the number of livestock on her farm, a move that goes against her environmental ambitions.

“Instead of being less intensive farming, we’ve upped our numbers because it’s the only way we can make money now. What we’ve done is the opposite of what they’re trying to achieve now and there’s nothing else we can do, because it’s the only way we will make any more money,” she said.

“On paper we are everything that the Government wants from a farmer, but we can’t live on fresh air and the love of doing the job. Without the subsidy it will be touch and go if we can afford to carry on as we are.”

A Defra spokesperson said: “Our farming schemes support farmers to produce food sustainably whilst protecting the environment and the unique character of our countryside. We have seen positive engagement so far with more Higher Tier Countryside Stewardship agreements in place than ever before.

“These programmes are designed to work across all farm business to fund the widespread, large-scale change we need to meet our challenging legally binding environmental targets. The options within these programmes are essential to improving water quality, restoring nature across the farmed landscape, decarbonising agriculture and building resilience to a changing climate.”