Today, I am pleased to be able to host a guest blog from the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Rt Hon Caroline Spelman MP.  Here she outlines the UK Government's ambitions for reform of the Common Agriculture Policy.  There is still a long way to go in these negotiations but agreement is due to be reached in 2013.  However, I thought it would be good to hear more about the UK's ambitions now.  Have a read and let me know what you think.  I will post our response later in the week.

---------------------------------

If ten million birds in the UK suddenly disappeared there would be a national outcry, and a call to action to make sure it never happened again. People would quite rightly regard it as an ecological disaster.

But take a look at what has been happening in Europe over the past 30 years. It is estimated that each year 10 million farmland birds simply disappear in Europe – that’s roughly the equivalent to the loss of one bird every three seconds or 1,141 every hour.

Successive Common Agricultural Policy regimes have sadly contributed hugely to these losses. Recent regimes have directly linked payments to production, forcing farmers to intensify, change cropping patterns, take out hedgerows and change landscapes.

Farmland bird statistics are an excellent indicator for the general health of wildlife in the farmed environment and we need to reverse this trend through a reformed CAP.

At present, the substantial majority of CAP funding goes to support direct payments to farmers (Pillar 1), with a much smaller pot going to fund Rural Development (Pillar 2), which includes nature-friendly schemes, such as our Environmental Stewardship schemes.

I do not believe the Commission’s current proposals to green Pillar 1 will deliver significant environmental benefits. They will also increase red-tape for farmers.

Instead, I would like to see a larger share of the budget going into Rural Development and at least 25 per cent of that budget dedicated to environmental measures. We need to have a system that reduces administrative burdens, secures practical, effective and simple provisions for farmers and one that boosts our wildlife, landscapes and local communities.

In February, the EU Agriculture Commissioner said he saw British farmers as ‘environmental champions’ – and we are celebrating this year the  25th anniversary of our first agri-environment schemes. Nearly 70 per cent of all our farmland in England is now covered by the schemes, which are supported by 55,000 farmers. The majority of our farmers are already ahead of the game and I want to see this valuable work recognised in any greening proposals.

Even so, we are always looking to do more and lead by example, which is why we recently announced that from January next year we are making changes to Entry Level Stewardship which will mean more winter/spring food for farmland birds, higher quality grassland, more hedgerows restored and new options to improve biodiversity on arable farmland.

I would like to thank the RSPB’s  work with farmers on specific farmland bird projects. You have made a huge contribution to helping restore species that were on the verge of extinction, such as the cirl bunting and stone curlew.

My vision for the new CAP is for a system that increasingly supports the delivery of environmental protection. It must enhance our water quality, improve our wildlife and reduce greenhouse gas emissions as well as help farmers to produce more food, sustainably. This can be achieved by the CAP encouraging innovation and competitiveness in the farming industry.

We need to get this balance between high quality sustainable food production and environmental protection right – for the sake of our children and the generations to come.

  • I've interviewed well meaning, conservation minded farmers as they blinked at me red eyed and clearly shattered. Surprised they were so good as to give me an hour of their time sat in their office with muddy boots and a pile of paperwork which clearly doesn't mesh easily with the long hours they already have to work.

    Keeping down admin and pushing up standards sounds heavenly. The two are not necessarially at odds but they often are.

    Another equally difficult dichotomy oft touted for the environment is, "reduce emissions & fossil fuel dependence but keep down energy prices".

    It essentially comes down to, "increase efficiency which driving up quality", not impossible but very difficult. It is a laudable aim but at the risk of failing to acheive either and I wonder if sometimes it would just be better for a policy makers to admit to prioritising one... for now.

    If we increase renewable energy and make investment now in cleaner energy we probably can cut prices in the future but right now we probably can't.

    Agri-environment schemes are simple in principle but we are doing something very difficult. The ecological and socio-economic challenges are large and though we understand them well and have been doing this for maybe 3 decades now? We haven't 'quite' got it right.

    It might be worth chosing a county and prioritising biodiversity protection (in a functioning farming environment) and if we can get that right see about reducing the costs and administrative burdens associated with it. Accept that we're human and that most of us can't do everything at once, that we'll fail on the way. Choose one thing and do it well on the promise that we'll expand once we've worked that out.

  • An excellent blog Martin, reasonably short and to the point. I am not a farmer nor am I an expert on the workings of Pillars 1&2 of CAP, but what Caroline Spelman is saying sounds very sensible to me. It is also pleasing that DEFRA is to upgrade the environmental criteria for the Entry Level Partnership since, as I understand it, that is one of the issues on which the RSPB has been campaigning.

    Regarding the issue of greening Pillar 1 in the CAP, as against a larger share of the CAP budget going to Pillar 2, what the Secretary of State is saying seems to me to be the right way forward. I do agree with her that it is vital that "red tape" and complexity are removed for farmers and that monies intended for environmental and biodiversity improvement are directed unequivocally to the areas for which they are intended. A larger share, and hopefully a much larger share, of the budget for Pillar 2 would seem to me to be the best way to do this, but as I say, I am not an expert in this area. However it is important the Sir Humphry Appelbys (of Yes Minister fame) are kept well in the rear in the workings of the 2013 CAP so that reversal of biodiversity loss in the EU directly receives a big boost from the next round of the CAP.

  • I agree with the central gist of this re Pillar 2. However Caroline I am profoundly concerned that George Osbourne has refused to submit a Minister to cross examining of the Treasury proposals for the energy market to cross examination by the Select Committee for Energy and Climate Change. This is meant to be "The Greenest Government Ever"; it is central to our democratic system that the executive is responsible to Parliament. There is now a profound crisis for the Coalition which appears to disfunctional to govern.

    It seems to me that it is not possible to have confidence in George Osbourne