Former environment secretary urges successor not to drop nature-friendly farming scheme

theguardian.com:

A former environment secretary has urged the UK government not to drop its nature recovery farming schemes, as the Guardian can reveal the more ambitious parts of the post-EU subsidy programme are set to be dropped.

George Eustice made the intervention, telling the Guardian that farmers are keen to be signed up to schemes in which they improve biodiversity, and that his replacement, Ranil Jayawardena, should not scrap them.

When the UK was in the EU, farmers were paid subsidies based on the area of land they managed. The government decided post-Brexit that farmers in England should be paid for providing “public goods” rather than for the amount of land they use. The Environment land management scheme (Elms), devised by the former environment secretary Michael Gove, was aimed at encouraging farmers to create space for rare species, as well as to increase carbon absorption to help England reach its net zero target.

Last week, it was revealed by the Observer that the future of the subsidy programme was under threat as it was placed in a review with the emphasis to be on productivity rather than nature recovery.

The Guardian now understands that the review is set to strip the nature recovery parts of the scheme. There are currently three prongs to Elms. One is the sustainable farming incentive (SFI), which gives farmers money for farming in a sustainable way, such as looking after animals properly and improving soil health by using cover crops and not using as many pesticides. Local nature recovery (LNR) is about creating woodlands, wetlands, hedgerows, and working with local nature groups to do so. Finally, landscape recovery (LR) is where large landowners or clusters of farmers work with the government to create ambitious