An open letter to the Minister of State for Food Security and Rural Affairs, Daniel Zeichner, has called on the government to reverse its cap on applications to the sustainable farming incentive (SFI) and to support a basic income for all agricultural workers.
Basic Income for Farmers (BI4Farmers), a group advocating for economic stability in the farming sector, has written to the minister following the government’s recent decision to pause new applications to the SFI.
The abrupt nature of the announcement of the closure of the SFI to new applications received backlash from farmers and politicians.
BI4Farmers said their letter is intended to highlight the financial uncertainty facing farmers, farm workers, and food producers in the country, many of whom the group said had already incorporated the expected payments from SFI into their financial planning.
Campaign lead at BI4Farmers, Joanna Poulton said: “Farmers were promised that post-Brexit subsidy schemes would provide financial security.
“Instead, we’ve seen a pattern of uncertainty and exclusion. The government must act now to restore trust and ensure a just and sustainable future for UK farming through a basic income scheme.”
BI4Farmers argues that the move to close SFI undermines confidence in post-Brexit subsidy schemes, particularly for small-scale and agroecological farmers who the group said were finally gaining access to crucial financial support.
The letter calls for:
- An immediate expansion of the SFI budget to allow more farmers to access support;
- A reopening of applications to prevent further financial insecurity in the sector;
- Exploration of a basic income for all agricultural workers, ensuring long-term stability for those who produce the nation’s food;
BI4Farmers said it has requested a meeting with Minister Zeichner to discuss solutions, including the viability of a basic income for farmers, as part of a fairer and more sustainable agricultural support system.
One of the farmers who signed the letter, Amelia Greenway from Springwater Farm in Exeter said: “SFI would have finally rewarded us financially for the standard of farming we deliver, now that has been scrapped there is no financial security for us going forward.
“It’s been a real blow. We don’t know where we’re going to go.
“There’s going to be many farmers going out of business in the next few years because of this, and there’s many farms that will now not be able to transition into more sustainable ways of farming because they don’t have the financial stability to do so,” Amelia said.
