Environmental lawyer at Freeths hopes that going forward the Government listens carefully to the concerned feedback it is receiving from farmers and landowner.

Farmers say they have had to abandon planned measures to help wildlife following the abrupt closure of a flagship nature-friendly farming scheme.

The Environment Department (Defra) announced in March the immediate closure of the sustainable farming incentive (SFI), which pays farmers in England for “public goods” such as insecticide-free farming, wildflower strips and managing ponds, as it was fully allocated for this year.

It means farmers who were preparing or considering applications for a scheme they did not know would have a cut-off date are now left with financial worries and say they will not be able to implement hoped-for measures for nature.

Richard Broadbent, an environmental lawyer at leading law firm Freeths, says:

“Encouraging landscape scale nature-friendly farming and nature recovery schemes is crucial if we are to reverse the chronic biodiversity decline we have seen across this country over the past 100 years. Because doing this requires a leap of faith by landowners to use their land in different and often quite innovative ways, landowners require certainty, clarity and careful forward planning. 

It has therefore been incredibly unhelpful that this Government has been unable to provide those conditions for landowners, from changes to inheritance tax rules to, without warning, suspending SFI at a time of year when farmers would inevitably be planning ahead how best to use their land. 

In recent weeks, the Government has created further uncertainty for landowners and natural capital scheme providers looking to invest in private nature markets with the publication of part 3 of the Planning and Infrastructure Bill which, by rewriting long standing nature conservation laws and over extending the role of the state, risks inhibiting the formation of innovative, dynamic and nature friendly markets aimed at efficiently and sustainably delivering ecosystem services. 

It is hoped that going forward the Government listens carefully to the concerned feedback it is receiving from farmers and landowners and approaches the sector in a more sensitive and respectful way.”