The Soil Association (SA) has criticised the government’s decision to stop taking new applications under the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI).
The SA has said the move is of particular concern to organic and smaller producers.
The association said for decades support has been available for farmers going through the two-year conversion period to organic, because of the many benefits that organic production offers to the environment.
This support is particularly important during the conversion when they must farm to full organic standards but cannot market their products as organic.
It said the move comes only weeks after farmers considering going organic were encouraged to use options within the SFI.
The association said that these options have now been frozen, with no assurances currently available for those wanting to convert to organic.
Soil Association chief executive, Helen Browning said: “This damaging move by government seriously risks the viability of the organic sector and threatens the supply of sustainable British food.
“It has frozen farmers out of the opportunity to meet the rising demand for organic food, which will instead continue to be met by imports.
“The government is disregarding what shoppers and farmers want, alongside the need to protect nature. This is a new low for sustainable food production in England, which will fall even further behind Scotland and other countries where there are targets to increase organic production.
“We are also very worried that smaller producers and family farms, particularly fruit and veg growers, have not had enough opportunity to access the scheme and that they will be most impacted by this sudden change,” she added.
SA are calling for payments for organic conversion and maintenance to be retained.
It also wants farmers who started but had not yet finished their SFI applications to have the application honoured, and priority to be given to smaller producers who it said needs them most.
It is also calling for payments for agroforestry which had just become available to be retained.
