November 2022 saw me attend my first Uplands Forum meeting. Fast forward two years and I am immensely proud to be chair of the Uplands North Group. It is an honour to represent so many hard-working farmers who work in some of the harshest of landscapes.
The forum officially ended on 31 October 2024, and everything uplands is now the responsibility of the Uplands North and South groups.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank all the members of the forum for the work they have done both on behalf of uplands farmers, and for the guidance and support they have given me personally.
“Short-term measures must be put in place to alleviate the problems that upland farmers are facing.”
Key asks and solutions
It was a goal of the forum to have an attractive SFI (Sustainable Farming Incentive) offer which would support upland businesses to both produce food and provide environmental benefits to the public. This has been taken on as the goal of the groups, as we are still not there yet.
Short-term measures must be put in place to alleviate the problems that upland farmers are facing.
In September, we presented a paper to the FFE (Food, Farming and Environment) Board – the NFU policy-making board made up of all the sector board chairs, NFU President, NFU Deputy President, and NFU Vice President outlining our policy asks and solutions.
Existing HLS payments
An uplift of existing HLS payments was one of our key asks, as there is currently no real mechanism in place to transition from legacy schemes to SFI.
This was agreed as NFU policy and we have asked Defra for this several times and they have indicated that they agree in principle. All that is needed now is the political will from government to get this over the line.
We will continue to apply pressure until we have a decision.
Bridging the gap between schemes
It is also entirely unacceptable that farmers ending CS, HLS, and SFI pilot schemes cannot start an SFI24 application until their existing scheme ends. A funding gap must be avoided for the sake of farmers and the environment.
The best-case scenario is an 8.3% loss of payments for a calendar year if a new agreement is granted with a gap of only one month.
This will not be possible for complex applications or endorsed standards, therefore further losses will be incurred.
We are currently working with the RPA and Defra to help provide possible solutions to this issue. Again, we feel that a solution could be in place if the political will was there.
If we can get some of these problems sorted and get some much-needed cash flowing out to farmers, we can then look at getting the SFI grassland and moorland options somewhere near fit for purpose.
I would urge any members who have not looked at SFI to do so. It is not great, but there are easy wins to help with funding for your business.
If it falls short for you, please write to your MP explaining your personal story and ask them to bring this to the attention of Defra ministers.
