A report from the National Audit Office (NAO) on the Farming and Countryside Programme has revealed that 48% of farmers are “not at all positive” about their future in farming.
The report also showed that 48% of farmers in 2023 rated their satisfaction with the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) as 8 out of 10 or better, with 81% rating it as 6 out of 10 or better.
35% proportion of farmers reported feeling confident in the ability of the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra) and its agencies to deliver changes to schemes and regulations.
Some key findings of the report, in relation to Defra’s Defra’s Farming and Countryside Programme, include:
- Defra’s iterative approach allows it to improve schemes over time, but is creating widespread uncertainty and risks for the sector;
- Defra lacks some of the data it needs to make timely decisions about programme design changes, increasing the risk of unintended consequences;
- Farmers’ ratings of their experience of SFI have steadily improved since the pilot but Defra has not succeeded in building their confidence in its overall ability to deliver change;
- The Infrastructure and Projects Authority (IPA) highlights positive features in the way Defra is managing the programme, and its latest amber rating largely reflects the ongoing external risks to delivery;
- Defra is relying on outdated legacy systems, and this has created a risk to delivery of existing agreements and payments to farmers.
Farmer confidence at ‘record lows’
Responding to the findings, Farming Minister Daniel Zeichner said: “Confidence amongst farmers has been at record lows.
“Farmers have been struggling with extreme weather events like flooding and sudden huge rises in input costs, been undermined by damaging trade deals, and rocked by the chop and change of farming schemes.”
Zeichner said the new government will restore stability and confidence amongst farmers.
“That is why we will not be over-turning the applecart – we are fully committed to ELMs,” he said.
“We will optimise schemes and grants in an orderly way, ensuring they produce the right outcomes for all farmers, while delivering food security and nature recovery in a just and equitable way.
“The government will ensure that our schemes work for those farmers who have been too often ignored – including small, grassland, upland and tenanted farms.”
Zeichner said the government will go further by introducing a new deal for farmers to boost Britian’s food security, restore nature and support rural economic growth.
“We will protect farmers from being undercut in trade deals, make the supply chain work more fairly, protect from shock rises in bills by switching on GB Energy and use the government’s purchasing power to back British produce.”
