Minister for State for food security and rural affairs, Daniel Zeichner has said people have known for “weeks and weeks, and months” that the sustainable farming incentive scheme (SFI) would be full at some point.
Zeichner was responding to a question from MP for Hinckley and Bosworth, Dr. Luke Evans, on when the government knew the scheme would be closing, and why no notice was given to farmers.
The Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) announced on Tuesday, March 11 that it would no longer be accepting applicants to the SFI.
Zeichner stated: “If you are working within your budget properly you can hardly say a week or two before that suddenly it’s going to close, because you then get a spike in applications, it’s like a run on a bank.
“I’m afraid basically when the scheme is finished, it is finished.”
MP for Westmorland and Lonsdale, Tim Farron, said the closure of the SFI constituted the breaking of the government’s word to farmers and asked: “Hasn’t the minister then broken his word to farmers and all who care about nature?”
The MP raised the issue of hill farmers, stating that there was 6,100 new entrants to SFI this year but just 40 of them were upland farmers.
“The big landowners and the corporates are already comfortably inside the tent but the farmers who are outside, are locked out without warning, are Britain’s poorest farmers in Britain’s most beautiful places,” Farron said.
Zeichner spoke about the importance of getting the budget out to farmers and said the full budget being spent was something to be celebrated.
MP for North Cornwall, Ben Maguire, said confidence in the farming sector was at an all time low, with many farmers looking at alternative careers.
Maguire asked Zeichner what plans he had to incentivise young people into farming given the ‘hammer blow’ to SFI payments, on top of the family farm tax.
Zeichner responded that he completed disagreed with the premise of the question, and that he was genuinely concerned about the future of the farming sector.
MP for Bridlington and The Wolds, Charlie Dewhirst, asked Zeichner: “How is any farming business expected to invest in the long term?”
Zeichner responded: “I do think it’s important that honourable members opposite understand that you can’t spend the same money twice, now they live in a world of ‘cakeism’ we don’t, and the money is spent. Once it’s spent you then have to move to a new set of schemes when you have the money available.”
North Herefordshire MP Ellie Chowns accused the government of having pulled the rug out from under farmers.
Chowns said farmers who were on the point of submitting their application had no way of planning for this, and are now “utterly left in the lurch”.
“How does the minister expect the UK to make that vital transition to nature friendly farming and boosting UK food production if this is how they treat farmers?” she asked.
Zeichner said he was astonished at the member’s contribution, and that she should be “celebrating the fact so many farmers are now farming in an environmentally sensitive way,
“I’d invite her to help us make sure that in future these schemes work better, but this is actually a cause for celebration about the benefits environmental land management schemes.”
