Agriculture Bill: A step forward for nature but there’s still much to do

Guest post from Tom Lancaster, Principal Policy Officer in the RSPB's Land Use Policy team

The Agriculture Bill presents a once in a generation opportunity to secure a better future for wildlife, in a way that also secures the future of farming andproduction of more sustainable food. Tabled on 12 September, and now deep into the “Committee Stage” of the Parliamentary process, the Bill and the policy statement that accompanied it is a good start.

As it stands, it would focus future public investment in farming and land management in England on “public goods” – those goods and services that we need farmers to provide, but for which there is no market. These include wildlife, clean water, flood risk management and climate change mitigation. The RSPB has advocated such a shift for a long time. Given the dominance of farming as a land use in England, and across the UK, better supporting farmers to provide environmental benefits will be essential to turning around the fortunes of wildlife in our countryside.

Brown hare in snowy field. Image: Ben Andrew (www.rspb-images.com)

It will also be essential to maintaining our ability to produce food in the long-term. With the costs of degraded soils in England and Wales reaching £1.2 billion per year and the declinesof pollinators and other beneficial invertebrates becoming increasingly alarming, environmental change is beginning to jeopardise the very resources that food production in the UK depends upon. Urgent action to address this is needed now – not just for wildlife, but for the future of farming itself. The recent Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report tracking progress against limiting temperature increases to 1.5 degrees brought this into sharp relief.

So, if the Bill is a good start, what more is needed to make sure that it drives long-term, positive change?

The big unresolved issue is funding. As expected, there is no clarity on how the Government intends to fund their “Green Brexit” beyond the existing commitment to maintain the current level of expenditure to 2022. This will be our priority during the passage of the Bill, and we want to see an amendment to the Bill that helps to secure the long-term certainty that farmers and the environment will both need.

Beyond this, the Bill is full of powers to act, but short on duties to actually do so. We will push changes to the Bill that require Ministers to, for example, develop an environmental land management scheme. We also
want a requirement for Ministers to use the welcome new powers in the Bill designed to strengthen the position of farmers in the supply chain. Enabling farmers to get a better return for the food they produce will be essential to the success of Defra’s proposed reforms.

With months of Parliamentary process to go, the Agriculture Bill is far from final. We will do all that we can to ensure that, when it goes from “Bill” to “Act”, it will be capable of securing the long term action needed to secure a future farming system that is good for both people and nature.