Post-Brexit farm subsidies in England revealed | Farming

Farmers in England will be able to receive government funding for up to 280 different actions that protect the environment, from conserving hedgerows to maintaining peatlands, under a comprehensive overhaul of farming subsidies.

The long-awaited announcement on Thursday shows farmers what will be expected of them if they apply for government incentives called environmental land management schemes (ELMs), worth £2.4bn a year for this parliament.

Farmers welcomed the announcement for providing clarity on the new payment plans, which have taken five years to draw up and are a post-Brexit replacement for the EU common agricultural policy (Cap).

Unlike the Cap, which provided farmers incentives based mainly on the acreage they farmed, the overhaul is meant to reward farmers for protecting nature and improving the environment. But critics warned that big arable farmers were still likely to reap the biggest rewards under the new plans, with meagre pickings for small farmers and those in difficult environments, such as upland and moorland regions.

Rates of payment for most of the 280 measures were set out in a 101-page document. The payments cover nearly every aspect of farming and are aimed at helping farmers to become more environmentally sustainable, use less insecticide and reduce pollution and other impacts on the natural world while producing more food.

Payments will vary widely depending on the actions farmers undertake. For instance, farmers will be paid as much as £537 a hectare for creating fenland out of lowland peat and £1,920 a hectare for maintaining land to produce fruit to organic standards, down to £22 a hectare for assessing soils and £10.38 for establishing a skylark plot.

Some are broad – £22 a hectare for adding organic matter to soil, or having green cover on at least 70% of land over winter – and some detailed, such as £120 to £150 for maintaining sphagnum moss to capture and store carbon.

The prospectus will be pored over by farmers, who will be able to “stack” different payments and incentives, drawing on as many as they can apply to their farm. The payments are meant to provide “public money for public goods”, to replace the subsidies from the EU common agricultural policy, and have taken nearly five years to draw up after interim measures met with mixed success.

Thérèse Coffey, the secretary of state for environment, food and rural affairs, said: “Farmers are at the heart of our economy – producing the food on our tables as well as being the custodians of the land it comes from. These two roles go hand-in-hand and we are speeding up the rollout of our farming schemes so that everyone can be financially supported as they protect the planet while producing food more sustainably.”

Applications for some of the payments will open in February, with others to follow in March, and some will be rolled out later in the year and next year.

Officials said the application and payment systems had been streamlined, so that farmers should find it easy to apply, with forms that should take no longer than 45 minutes to fill, without requiring professional help.

Mark Tufnell, the president of the Country Land and Business Association, which represents about 28,000 farmers, landowners and rural business owners, said: “This is crunch time for a sector that has stoically tolerated years of turbulence and uncertainty. These standards and payment rates are broadly in line with what was expected, and will encourage many arable farmers to take the leap into the new agricultural schemes. But there is little new in this for those on moorlands, or the hard-pressed hill farmer struggling to earn a living.”