Over the last couple of days, I’ve looked at two of the big issues that the Government is wrestling with as it tries to figure out what the CAP should look like in England over the next seven years. Today I want to discuss ‘greening’ – the CAP’s version of you shouldn’t get something for nothing.
Big issue number 3: making greening work for wildlife
Greening was EU Commissioner Ciolos’ big idea: to improve the overall environmental performance of the CAP by making 30% of a direct farm payments conditional on undertaking a range of ‘greening’ measures, including maintenance of permanent grassland, crop diversification and the creation of an Ecological Focus Area (EFA). Sounds sensible enough. If you get a cheque from Brussels it would make sense to offer something in return.
Yet, the worry we have had throughout the EU negotiations was that if you really want taxpayers’ money spent through the CAP to deliver more of what society wants (eg a countryside rich in wildlife to which people have access) then your best way of doing that is through Rural Development Programmes (the topic of my blog yesterday). There is no doubt that attention during the negotiations moved away from RDP towards greening. As a result it attracted opposition from some (but certainly not all) farmers who saw it as an infringement on their unconditional right to their direct subsidies.
To anyone concerned about the future of wildlife in England, the UK and across Europe, the final CAP deal will be a bitter disappointment. It is now apparent that the primary purpose of greening is not to improve the environment, but to justify the continuation of direct payments to 2020 and beyond. And don’t just take my word for – that’s more or less what the European Commission said last week.
To Defra’s credit though, all is not lost. During the two year negotiations between October 2011 and the final deal in June this year, Defra fought hard to ensure sufficient flexibility in the final regulation to get something out of greening.
The final deal on greening is horrendously complicated, and I don’t intend to go into the detail here. I’m pretty sure jargon such as ‘diagonal equivalence’, ‘national certification’ and ‘disallowance risk’ isn’t why, I guess, most people read this blog.
So I’ll just focus on a couple of reasons why Defra need to make sure that they use the flexibility they fought so hard to secure, and get the most out of greening in England.
Firstly, the need is undeniable. The agri-environment schemes that I mentioned in my last blog whilst effective as far as they go, will not have the budget or the scope to address all the environmental objectives they are perhaps expected to. The annual need for England has been estimated at £1.26 billion, far in excess of the available budget. Greening therefore could and should have a pivotal role in addressing the needs of the ‘wider countryside’ – important for widespread species such as skylarks and other farmland birds, certain mammals and the invertebrates that pollinate many of our primary crops as well as wild plants. Government has committed (see here) to producing a National Pollinator Strategy for England, to make sure we are tackling all the threats facing pollinators in a coherent way. Many wild pollinator species are declining and some are the focus of targeted conservation efforts (for example our Short Haired Bumblebee project here). However pollinators as a group provide a vital and free service across the whole countryside. Pollinators generally need pollen and nectar for feeding and safe sites for nesting and hibernating. Greening – in particular Ecological Focus Areas – would seem to be the best tool available for providing these basic resources across the farmed countryside. Perhaps each EFA could include a certain proportion of flower-rich habitat to benefit a variety of insects? This is detail that will have to be worked on.
My second point goes back to the amount of public money involved – going by 2012 payments, the greening payment will be worth £489 million per year in England alone. By anybody’s reckoning, that’s a lot of money and everybody at the moment seems agreed that nobody should be getting something for nothing.
To green or not to green the CAP? That is my question of the day.
It would be great to hear your views.
Martin, I've had to read this three times before even starting to work out what you are actually saying - and as you are probably trying to be open & communicative, it rather makes your point about the European commission which I'm sure is not. First, my reading is that this is something quite different from HLS & ELS which are under the RDPE & are the 'modulation' money with a 15 % cap - is that right ? Second, reading between the lines it sounds as if greening is great but is it real ? As you say, it appears to be driven not by improving the environment but more by the realisation that automatic payments will one day be challenged and require a fig leaf now. And, going on from there, are we heading for another deal like the early ESAs and now ELS where farmers get paid for things that inconvenience them little but are also below the threshold where they actually benefit the environment ?
I fear my enthusiasm for Owen Paterson's position was slightly dampened by finding that, as ever with the UK, he is in a minority of one on the issues he's arguing for - quite a safe place to be, perhaps, because you can look big and brave in the sure confidence its never going to happen. Is that cynical, accurate or in between ?
And, Sooty, I know Helmsley well - its developed into the sort of chocolate box village where you can buy a posh frock but would struggle to find a sausage roll - not, I suspect, your sort of place even without the carpet of dead pheasants !
Do not hold your breath for too much from Owen Paterson for protecting birds as in Telegraph Nature Notes he went overboard praising shooting and fishing,saying shooting was bang in the middle of growing the rural economy and improve the environment(conveniently forgetting all the lead shot they illegally use).
He went overboard about village called Helmsley which was really thriving being full of people going to shoot.
It all sounds pretty complicated. I take it that the greening element is the 15% of CAP funding that EU Governments have the option to transfer from Pillar 1, the direct farm payments, to Pillar 2 which includes environmental improvement programmes like Rural Development Programmes. (Hence some farmers opposition to this 15% being enacted as they would loose that amount of direct subsidies).
Clearly wildlife in our countryside is in a dire situation so the more that more farmers are encourage to farm in a wildlife friendly manor the better. We really do not want farmers that turn their land into simply a factory and which as a result, kills off all our wildlife and through its farming methodology and disregard for wildlife, is probably unsustainable in the longer run.
Therefore any transfer of funds from Pillar 1 to Pillar 2 (the 15% greening) must be worth doing. I just hope all other EU countries also make that full 15% transfer because the state of our wildlife is really part of Europe as a whole.