Nine organisations have been awarded a share of the government’s £1 million Future Farming Resilience Funding, Farming Minister Victoria Prentis announced today.
Following a competitive process in 2019, grants have been awarded to rural facing organisations across a range of sectors and regions in England, including Bishop Grosseteste University, Brown & Co, Devon County Council, Ricardo-AEA, RSK-ADAS, Soil Association and SRUC (Scotland’s Rural College).
The projects run by these organisations are set to help 1,700 farmers this year, by providing them with information workshops and tailored on-farm advice to help ensure a smooth transition to the new farming system.
This comes ahead of the seven-year Agriculture Transition period due to start in 2021, when the current subsidy system of Direct Payments will begin to be phased out and replaced with a new system that rewards farmers and land managers for the ‘public goods’ that they provide, such as better air and water quality, improved access to the countryside and measures to reduce flooding.
Farming Minister Victoria Prentis said:
We are transforming British farming to boost productivity, enhance our environment for future generations and support a strong food production sector.
Whilst we’re not switching off direct payments overnight, we recognise this is a time of huge change for the industry, and we want to help our land managers grasp the exciting opportunities our domestic agricultural policy will provide.
This funding is just one way we will support our hard-working farmers as they prepare for the transition towards a new farming system that works for the whole of the country.
2 comments
Comment by William Hughes-Games posted on
I'm curious. Is anyone actually reading such comments. Are they being published. Are they being passed on to the folks that should be considering whether to take the advice herein. Is anyone there. Please get back to me.
Comment by William Hughes-Games posted on
There are many systems being promoted by various groups and individuals to basically pass on a farm to future generations, with the soil and hence the productive capacity of the farm better than it is at present. The only way to see which of these systems or combinations of these systems is best is by trying them out in a good handful of farms and monitoring the results. May I respectfully suggest that you follow the advice contained in the book by David R Montgomery, Growing A Revolution, for one set of such trials. For added background, get the prequel, Dirt, and the sequel, The Hidden Half of Nature.