To ensure a new ELS agreement will fall under the old Third Edition Handbook, a valid application must be submitted before the end of September to have a start date for the 1st December 2012, prior to the new rules coming in to effect from the 1st January 2013. The new Handbook has not yet been published, but announcements indicate, with the exception of some new options, a clear message that one will have to do more in order to claim the same money, as the amount of points allocated for a lot of the options will be reduced. This of course also affects HLS applications, as they are normally combined with the ELS.
It is interesting to note that the hedgerow management option receives the heaviest reduction in points (27.3%). One wonders if this will be an ongoing trend when Natural England realises the detrimental effect the hedgerow options have on maintaining stock-proof field boundaries. Whilst in the past one may not have been too uncomfortable in suggesting that entering into the ELS does not devalue a farm, if the profitability of stock farming continues to increase with a move back to more intensive grassland management, it will be interesting to see, if hedgerows are “let go”, how the market will view this in the future. Fencing costs immediately increase where a hedge has “bolted”; encroachment becomes more of an issue; the traditional damper strip of land alongside the hedgerow increase in width with the added shading; and a hedge’s use as a shelter during inclement weather decreases. There is still debate as to how advantageous an overgrown hedge is compared with a trimmed hedge for certain types of wildlife, and the impact of larger machinery being needed to cut the overgrown hedgerow.
Applications for both HLS and ELS are no longer the “happy go lucky”, easily thought through schemes they used to be, as rules and monitoring have tightened up over the years. This will probably increase with Natural England now being effectively part of the RPA. There are already clear signs that the RPA culture is going to be dominant, and the effects of combining the organisations are already being felt. We now see inspectors from the RPA carrying out stewardship farm visits and at the same time checking on mapping issues, which will have an effect on what areas are eligible for SPS. This common sense administrative economy is something farmers need to be wary of. We have also seen cases where inspectors are looking to inaccuracies of 0.001 ha rather than 0.01 ha. There is a marked increase in the level of accuracy required, and an area inspection, whether sensory or on farm, can automatically turn out to be a costly exercise, even if everything is found to be in order. An inordinate amount of time is involved in satisfying the queries raised, but you can almost guarantee that, if inspected, it will be months before the results of the inspection are processed and your payments approved for that year. Effectively you go to the bottom of the pile and you are the last to be paid out. The saddest part is that there is no guarantee, having been inspected once, you will not be inspected again and a second inspector may pick up on different things each time. Just because a farm has been inspected, it doesn’t mean that this is a guarantee that everything is in order. As the RPA and Natural England economise further administratively, one can expect new areas to be flagged up between them requiring even further diligence. This was perfectly illustrated with the dual use issue, which still rumbles on, where different parties are claiming different subsidies from the same land (i.e. SPS and stewardship).
Any reform of the CAP is going to have to be attractive if relying on such voluntary schemes in an environment with the profitability of producing food increasing. Purchasers of farms may now start taking a more careful look at any ongoing stewardship obligations.