FARMERS are calling for more control of their land and more government support in order to continue producing food for the nation in the future.

Speakers at the Cereals Event held in Lincolnshire in June said that joined-up investment in environmentally sustainable cropping will help them achieve this goal.

“There are three big policy areas that worry me,” said Robbie Moore, shadow Defra Minister. These are the changes to agricultural and business property reliefs from inheritance tax, the Land Use Framework consultation – which proposes to take 18 per cent of land out of agricultural production – and the Planning and Infrastructure Bill. This will give Natural England more power to compulsorily purchase land at agricultural value rather than a higher development value.

“Collectively, this is actively using the state to free land up for uses other than food production. Private landowners and businesses are losing control.”

NFU president Tom Bradshaw said the closure of and likely future changes to the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) will further compromise farmers’ ability to feed the nation sustainably.

“The removal of the SFI was a bitter pill to swallow as it has become a key part of the rotation,” he said. The very principle of public goods is that they’re not paid for at food level – so they have to be paid for using public money. “The magic money tree from the private sector has been promised for 10 years and has not materialised. It’s a pipe dream.”

Rumours of the new version of SFI, with capped payments and a social element, are particularly worrying, as that will not deliver what is needed for a productive, environmentally friendly farming system, warned Mr Bradshaw. “We need open, honest communication about their vision for farming, so we can help them shape it.”

Jamie Burrows, NFU Crops Board chair, said some people would stick with SFI-type options in the rotation because they’ve seen the benefits to soil health and the environment. “But keeping the bank manager happy has to be the reality, and my fear is that farmers will have to maximise production just to make ends meet. That’s a real backwards step.”

However, there are some real win-wins which could deliver for farming and the environment, he added. One example is improved investment in, and markets for, peas and beans. Not only are pulses good for the soil, but they also fix nitrogen, thereby reducing fertiliser use. They also replace imported soya for animal feed, cutting farming’s carbon footprint.

The £5.9-million Nitrogen Climate Smart (NCS) project, funded by Defra to cut UK farming’s CO2e emissions by 1.5-million tonnes a year, could help here. Working with a wide range of partners, the project is already delivering very exciting results, said Roger Vickers, CEO at project lead PGRO. “Even after just one year we’re seeing that, if 20 per cent of UK arable land grew pulses, which were fed instead of imported soya, we’d save 3.4m tonnes of CO2e per year. That’s 7 per cent of all UK agriculture’s emissions.”