The post-Brexit farming subsidy scheme in England has failed
to improve on the old EU system and large landowners are still benefiting
disproportionately, according to the president of the National Farmers Union.
In an interview with the Financial Times, Minette Batters, who is due to step
down as president of the NFU in February, slammed post-Brexit agricultural
policy, which has been overseen by seven different environment secretaries
since the UK voted to leave the EU in 2016.
One of the biggest criticisms of
the EU subsidy scheme run as part of the Common Agricultural Policy was that it
unfairly benefited large landowners. Brexit was seen as an opportunity for the
payment system to be overhauled. But the replacements in England, the
Environmental Land Management schemes (ELMs), have been slow to be implemented
and criticised for placing too much emphasis on the environment at the expense
of food production. “The focus at the moment is on growing a crop for the
environment and not producing food . . . I think that’s going to be really hard
with the cost of living crisis,” said Batters, adding that consumers cared more
than ever about food security. [Not sure about the evidence for that claim].
She went on to criticise the government for
failing to build a more equitable system. “Large landowners effectively living
off the state is not going to wash going forward,” said Batters. While
the new scheme differs from the EU system in that funding is awarded in
exchange for environmental actions — “public money for public goods” — the
system is still area based. Access to land is a pre-requisite to access the
scheme and the more land a farmer has the more funds they will be able to
secure.
The phaseout of the EU Basic Payment Scheme has left many farmers who
were reliant on the subsidies with lower payments than they had previously.
Meanwhile, take up of the flagship payment under ELMs — the Sustainable Farming
Incentive — has been low, with only a fraction of the 82,000 farmers who are
eligible having signed up.
