January

It will come as a welcome relief to the farming industry that Defra’s announcement on the 26^th of January finally puts a significant amount of detail into the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) tier of the Environmental Land Management (ELM) scheme. 

There were some welcome announcements in Mark Spencer’s speech to the Oxford Farming Conference, primarily in Defra’s acknowledgement that many of the costs associated with Countryside Stewardship have increased dramatically in recent years. However, it remains incredibly frustrating that farmers were once again left with only promises for future clarity on the new Environmental Land Management Scheme.