To simplify the Basic Payment Scheme (BPS) in England and cut red tape faced by farmers, the Government plans to remove the greening requirements with effect from the 2021 scheme year.

Currently 30 per cent of a farmer’s BPS payment is attributed to compliance with the greening requirements and this funding will continue even once the obligations are removed.

The greening rules were originally introduced to protect permanent grassland, prevent monoculture cropping and create additional habitat. However, they have since proved to deliver little additional environmental benefit. The European Court of Auditors estimated that greening has only led to a change in farming practice on around 5 per cent of all EU farmland. So while axing environmental rules may appear to be going against the grain, the Government is on secure footing.

The first element of greening related to the area of permanent grassland in England. Permanent pasture will continue to be protected at farm level via the Environmental Impact Assessment regulations which apply to any decisions to cultivate or increase its productivity.

Abolishing the crop diversification rule will be welcomed by farmers with smaller areas of land who may grow fewer crops each year, but still have a wide rotation when the range of crops grown across successive seasons is taken into account.

The rule also created some practical issues, for example many farms didn’t have enough separate grain stores to cope with three different crops. Furthermore, if the smallest required area of the third crop was grown, the cost of production could be uneconomic, especially if external contractors were used and needed to visit the farm just for that crop.

The Ecological Focus Area (EFA) rules perhaps had most impact on arable farmers’ activities: those with more than 15 hectares of arable land were required to maintain EFAs which were equivalent to at least 5 per cent of their arable land. They included buffer strips, field margins, fallow, cover crops and nitrogen fixing crops.

While some farmers were able to meet their EFA requirement using existing environmental features, others needed to create additional features on the farm. Creation of additional features often reduced agricultural cropping areas and discouraged farmers from applying for a Countryside Stewardship (CS) agreement as this would further reduce the acreage they could crop.

Now that the greening rules are set to be axed, there is an opportunity for farmers to reconsider their participation in Countryside Stewardship and begin working on plans to use their EFA features within a CS agreement ready for when the application window opens in 2021.

Further information

Contact Savills Food & Farming