Improving the Sustainable Farming Scheme for people, nature, and climate

The last few weeks have been dominated by farmer protests, and stories of farmers meeting to discuss Welsh Government’s proposals to create a new Sustainable Farming Scheme (the SFS), alongside wider efforts to tackle agricultural pollution and bovine TB. It’s fair to say that many of them are unhappy about the Welsh Government’s approach. 

Welsh Government’s opposition to a badger cull is more than a decade old, and their alternative vaccination programme isn’t delivering the results farmers wish to see. Agricultural pollution regulations are persistently delayed, and are unlikely to be adequately enforced, even if they are ever fully enacted. Both present significant costs and risks to Welsh farm businesses.

This discontent has built with the latest consultation on the SFS. The policy has always been controversial with sections of the farming community. Decades of the Common Agricultural Policy have shaped Welsh agriculture. While it has benefited some larger, more intensive farms, it has often failed to maximise the benefits of traditional family farming and fostered a growing disconnect between the food Wales produces and what the public eat. For example, just 5% of the beef and lamb produced in Wales is consumed here.

The SFS isn’t asking farmers to give up 20% of their land for trees and nature, yet you’d be forgiven for thinking that if you’ve only seen the media coverage.

Welsh Government policy has also contributed to this. I remember the launch of the Food and Drink Strategy a decade ago and its focus on getting as much money for Welsh food as possible from around the globe. From a purely economic perspective that was wonderful, and the sector exceeded the target of growing sales 30% by 2020, to a value of £7bn a year.

Yet this came at a cost that we don’t often talk about. Between 2011 and 2021 greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture in Wales rose by 7.6% (compared to a 17.5% fall across the wider economy). Despite industry growth targets, the number of farmers, partners and directors fell by 6,900. The total labour force across the agricultural sector reduced by 8,000.

Those losses are several thousand more than the much criticised ‘worst case scenario’ analysis of the SFS’s Universal Tier published by Welsh Government before Christmas, something which those opposing the SFS need to reconcile, and is a sign of what’s to come without the scale of change the SFS proposes.

When combined with the roller-coaster of cost increases for common products like fertiliser, pesticides, animal feeds and supplements caused by things like Covid-19, Brexit, and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, it’s no surprise that the industry is in great pain.

What’s even worse is that there’s little sign of things getting better. The increasing cost of doing business in a changing climate, with degrading soils, more frequent droughts and flooding, and massively depleted and polluted ecosystems is already taking its toll. Climate induced weather impacts such as droughts and floods are costing farmers in Wales tens of millions each year.

As a result, it’s no wonder that many Welsh farmers, such as those in the Nature Friendly Farming Network, are looking to Welsh Government to support them in the transition towards more sustainable farming practices where they operate within the natural carrying capacity of the land and become more resilient to threats such as climate change. Such change needs to occur alongside wider reform of the Welsh food system so that we produce more of what we need and better supply it to the public.

Only there’s a catch. The Welsh Government’s SFS plan requires significant change in this decade. The most controversial policy proposal includes farmers being paid to increase tree cover to 10% of their land, and a minimum of 10% of all farmland to be managed for nature. What’s more, the Government lacks a positive vision for this change (especially on wider food system reform), and the financial commitment required to make it work. 

It is likely that the search for profitability will lead to the further intensification of the most productive parts of Wales at ever greater environmental cost. 

It’s worth noting that the 10% figure includes existing woodland (currently in excess of 6% of Welsh agricultural land) and excludes all land which is unsuitable for planting and/or beyond a farmer’s rights to plant. As such this is likely to represent a small national increase in tree cover and is within reach of individual farms.

However, as a result, we’ve seen farmers across Wales protesting the Government’s proposals. The levels of anger, and disinformation that have been injected into this debate require an article in their own right, but it suffices to say that while the facts haven’t always been correct, the sentiments have been. For example, the SFS isn’t asking farmers to give up 20% of their land for trees and nature, yet you’d be forgiven for thinking that if you’ve only seen the media coverage.

A failure by Welsh Government to set a positive vision is letting the negativity build and has left an open space for bad actors to exploit Welsh farmers to achieve their wider political aims, such as the demolition of widely supported environmental policies like Net Zero. 

If the Welsh Government abandons the SFS in response to this pressure, then all the problems of the status-quo remain, and will if anything, intensify. We will continue down a path where very few farms can survive without direct taxpayer subsidies. It is likely that the search for profitability will lead to the further intensification of the most productive parts of Wales at ever greater environmental cost. 

As a result, traditional family farms will continue to struggle, with the risk of thousands more falling into unprofitability and through it, and a lack of succession opportunities, farms eventually being sold off for ‘rewilding’ or carbon offsetting projects on a scale that far outweighs what we’ve already started to see in recent years. This would have massive cultural significance to rural Wales well beyond the former farm gate, with effects extending to the Welsh language among others.

Any short-term celebration derived from the lowering of environmental requirements will soon become a pyrrhic victory.

That’s not a future I want to see. And I’d bet not many farmers or politicians want to see it either, but it’s where the opposition to the SFS we have seen recently could push us. 

So, what can be done instead? First Welsh Government needs to be honest and lead the change it wants to see. It needs to:

• Set out a positive vision of the SFS in operation by working with farmers to promote flexible agroforestry approaches which mean that trees and livestock productivity are not at odds, and that all farms can be supported to achieve 10% tree cover, and, if they wish, beyond.  
• Properly fund the SFS, and accelerate the delivery of the Optional and Collaborative layers of the SFS so that farmers can access additional funds to deliver more labour-intensive actions that improve farm viability alongside nature and climate.
• Embrace innovative finance options to inject more private capital into agricultural support schemes to exceed the shortfall in public money and create an accountable alternative to mass land purchases for carbon sequestration.
• Invest in training and jobs so that current and future generations of farmers are first in line to prosper from the new industries and sectors created by a just transition to more sustainable farming practices – RSPB recently found that over 7,000 jobs could be created in Wales in the next decade alone, and;
• Develop and enact a national food strategy which builds off the success of free school meals to ensure that every public procurement catering contact creates a market for expanded domestic horticultural produce alongside meat and dairy.

If the Government delivers these changes, it has the potential to put Welsh farming on a much more secure and sustainable footing that is more resilient to the pressures and costs of our ever-changing world. If it fails, all the problems we already have will remain.

My fear is that any short-term celebration derived from the lowering of environmental requirements will soon become a pyrrhic victory. There is a considerable risk that we shall turn around in the early 2030s to discover that we have lost thousands more farmers than a transition to the SFS predicts, the disconnect between the food we produce and consume is ever greater, and our food security is even weaker in the face of climate change and biodiversity loss.

In that scenario there are very few winners, and we will look back on this time and wonder how we could have done it better. Hopefully, we won’t have to.

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