SFI & the French Exit
What sort of well respecting pub forgets to ring that bell for last orders in a bustling pub, full of loyal customers who are making plans to return and spend money? The same could be said for the appalling move from our government on the 11th of March 2025, closing the SFI scheme with no notice. I understand the budget is spent, but this isn’t like me not opening my bank statements for a month and then realising that, oops, I’m in the red. You don’t just suddenly realise at 5pm on a Tuesday that all £5 billion is allocated and oh, it also hasn’t delivered the environmental wonders blindly hoped for!
Fortunately, the Landscape Recovery Scheme has been left unscathed and will continue to deliver landscape scale conservation with a collaborative approach from farmers.
The tone in the announcement really got my heckles up. Celebrating how well they (the government) have done to spend all the money, when the tone should have been more confessional, informative, reflective. Sharing the shortcomings of this and the last government that led us into this slurry. Perhaps even an apology to the farmers and advisors who have spent months developing a scheme and were about to click submit, who now have to replan and wait patiently again to see what beans are thrown to them and when. What about an apology to all the civil servants who predicted this and waved the red flag until they had RSI in their wrists. Communication is the key to all relationships and even pretty unpalatable situations can be well navigated with good conversations and sensitive tone.
Reading the comments on farming forums the response is sadly what you would expect and to be frank, what the government deserve. Phrases like ‘spray baby spray’, ‘plough baby plough’ are the regretful and predictable consequences. One farmer interview started with, ‘I don’t know what we have done to make this government hate us so much, but they clearly do’. This is what a few of my clients have said to me recently and it is very poignant when you consider:
— We are in a biodiversity crisis and facing the 6th mass extinction.
— The majority of our farmed soils are compacted and depleted and not fulfilling their carbon storing potential.
— Our rivers are in terrible condition.
— Climate change is having negative impacts in the UK, causing more extreme weather such as flooding and drought.
— We are getting more unhealthy, physically and mentally, from childhood through to old age. The NHS is woefully strained.
What is the one profession that can have a significant, positive effect on ALL the above? Farming and land managing. The DEFRA grants could deliver support and advice to turn this ship around. Instead, farmers feel unsupported, unloved and even unwanted (their words). Farmers manage 70% of our land, and therefore the air, water, soil and all the biodiversity that lives there. They feed us every day. What sort of food and countryside do we want?
Should we rely on imported food when climate change is causing unpredictable harvests globally? We still have farmers who want to feed us, for how long I’m not sure. We have some of the highest welfare standards and the regen movement is gathering traction to farm not just sustainably but regeneratively, putting more back into the nature bank than we take. But I’d certainly rather know we had some food security during these times of political and climatic unrest.
While we can’t rely on the government to support our British farmers, please vote with your stomach, choose to buy British, even better, to buy local and direct and from farmers who are already farming in harmony with the land.
The SFI Debacle. Lessons need to be learned, not only in Defra
Geoff Sansome