Farm chief slams post-Brexit subsidy regime

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.