Section F: Environmental Stewardship (ES) and the English Woodland Grant Scheme (EWGS)
- How much money is available for agri-environment schemes, including Environmental Stewardship? Is this more than the last Programme?
- Is there enough funding for the Higher Level Scheme (HLS)?
- Has ES remained open despite the delay to the start of the RDPE 2007-2013?
- What changes are we making to ES?
- Why have you agreed to make these changes?
- Isn't the removal of the management plan options a betrayal of the recommendations of the Policy Commission on the Future of Farming and Food ("the Curry principles")
- Which agreements are affected by these changes?
- How many agreements are affected by these changes?
- Do agreement holders need to do anything now?
- What will happen to those agreement holders who may now wish to withdraw from ES?
- Will people with a provisional Environmental Stewardship agreement lose money?
- What are the new scheme requirements related to the revised Nitrates Action Programme?
- What have these new scheme requirements been introduced?
- How do these revised requirements for ES link to the proposals to revise the Nitrates Action Programme?
- Aren't you pre-empting the results of the consultation on the revised Nitrates Action Programme by making these changes?
- What will be the impact of these new scheme requirements on ES agreement holders?
- Why have the Management Plan options been withdrawn?
- Could the management plan options be reinstated?
- What will RPA inspectors do if they are inspecting holdings where the removal of management plans has removed any tolerance of the points threshold?
- What will happen to those agreement holders with management plan options who may now wish to withdraw from ES?
- Why will a review clause be inserted in ES agreements?
- When will these changes be made?
- When will agreement holders know about the changes to be made to their agreement?
- Will changes be made to the Scheme literature?
- How many farmers have signed up to Entry Level Stewardship?
- Can you guarantee that ESA and CSS agreements which expire over the next 6 years will be transferred into Higher Level Stewardship?
- What's happening with the review progress under Environmental Stewardship?
- How much money is available for forestry in the new Programme?
- Is the English Woodland Grant Scheme open?
- How many people have so far joined the EWGS?
- What plans are there to review progress under the EWGS?
1. How much money is available for agri-environment schemes, including ES? Is this more than the last Programme?
- Agri-environment spend will increase from about £1 billion under the previous programme to about £3 billion in the new programme. This will enable ELS to remain open to all farmers.
2. Is there enough funding for Higher Level Stewardship?
- The budget provides for over £700 million for new HLS agreements for the period 2007 - 2013, compared to £420 million for new Countryside Stewardship/ESA agreements under the old programme.
- Like Countryside Stewardship, HLS is a competitive scheme so only those agreements that offer significant environmental outcomes are selected.
3. Has ES remained open despite the delay to the start of the RDPE 2007-2013?
- The delay in formal Programme approval has not held up application processing and agreements have been issued on a provisional basis since 1 January 2007. Successful applicants in 2007 were all informed that their agreements might have to be amended in the light of any changes required by the EU approval process. Following EU approval, application processing is proceeding in the normal way.
- Higher Level Stewardship is a discretionary scheme and applications go through an assessment process that takes into account how the application meets the environmental priorities identified in the local area.
4. What changes are we making to ES?
- As a condition of EU agreement for our Programme, we are making changes to the Environmental Stewardship Scheme. These changes will apply to provisional agreements made from 1 January 2007. Provisional ES agreements will have to be changed accordingly. The changes are:
- Inclusion of scheme requirements related to the proposed revisions to the Nitrates Action Programme to agreements in existing NVZs
- Withdrawal of Management Plan Options
- Insertion of a Review Clause in ES Agreements
- Environmental Stewardship agreements entered into before 1 January 2007 are not affected by these changes.
5. Why have you agreed to make these changes?
- The Programme represents a huge investment in rural areas: EU agreement has paved the way for implementation of a programme worth £3.9bn.
- Without making changes we would not have secured approval for the ES scheme. This might have meant closing the scheme for a period of time.
6. Isn't the removal of the management plan options a betrayal of the recommendations of the Policy Commission on the Future of Farming and Food ("the Curry principles"):
- The Policy Commission on the Future of Farming and Food recommended a new, entry-level stewardship tier: open to as many farms in England as possible; accessed through a whole farm plan: kept as simple and easy to administer for farmer and Government as possible, with payment on a flat rate basis per hectare.
- These principles have not changed:
- ELS remains open to all farmers in England
- The payment remains at a flat rate basis per hectare
- The remaining 58 ELS options e.g., hedgerow maintenance; ditch maintenance, are still available and farmers should be able to get sufficient points from these options from the scheme without having to change their good environmental farming practices
7. Which agreements are affected by these changes?
- For ELS and OELS all provisional agreements with a start date of 1 February 2007 onwards will be affected.
- For HLS and OHLS all provisional agreements with a start date of 1 May 2007 onwards will be affected.
8. How many agreements are affected by these changes?
- All ES agreements issued since January 2007 now need to be made into formal agreements, that reflect our discussions with the EU Commission.
- Natural England has issued approximately 5,400 ES agreements on a provisional basis with a start date after 1 January 2007. All these agreements will need to become formal agreements
- Of these, approximately 2,600 agreements have management plan options
- About 1,800 of these will no longer have sufficient surplus points to meet the points threshold, once management plans are removed as a paid option.
9. Do agreement holders need to do anything now?
- Natural England will be contacting ES provisional agreement holders in the coming weeks with details of the changes affecting agreements.
- In the meantime, provisional agreement holders should continue to carry out the options set out in the current agreement.
10. What will happen to those agreement holders who may now wish to withdraw from ES?
- Natural England is committed to retaining all of the ES agreements entered into on a provisional basis and will work with customers to achieve this.
- However, any ES provisional agreement holders who cannot, with the removal of management plans, meet the 30 points/ha threshold will be entitled to withdraw from the scheme without penalty.
- Providing these agreement holders have met all the conditions of their agreement no payments will be recovered.
11. Will people with a provisional Environmental Stewardship agreement lose money?
- Anyone who has entered into an Environmental Stewardship agreement since 1 January 2007 will be eligible for payment for work they have undertaken so far under the provisional agreement.
Details of the changes
12. What are the new scheme requirements related to the revised Nitrates Action Programme?
- The following requirements will be applied to provisional ES agreements in existing NVZs:
- Whole farm manure Nitrogen loading limit – This requirement establishes a limit of 170 kg/ha of total Nitrogen from livestock manures (deposited during grazing and by spreading) per calendar year, averaged across the farmed area. The limit for organic manure spread on individual fields will remain at 250kg total N/ha/yr.
- Crop nitrogen requirement limit - requires farmers not to apply more nitrogen than the crop requires and to assume a level of efficiency of nitrogen supply from any manure applications. To meet this new requirement, farmers will in practice have to produce a management plan for their nitrogen applications over the coming year. But those who have produced ELS/OELS nutrient/manure management plans will already meet this requirement.
- Spreading techniques - prohibits the use of high trajectory, high pressure application techniques for spreading organic manure.
- Record-keeping - establishes an additional requirement for farmers to keep a record of their assessment of soil nitrogen supply, crop nitrogen requirements and imports of manure onto the farm.
- Further details on exactly what farmers who currently have provisional ES agreements in NVZs will need to do will be provided by Natural England.
13. Why have these new scheme requirements been introduced?
- The EU Commission has for some time been extremely concerned that England has not adequately implemented the Nitrates Directive.
- Therefore, as a condition of Commission approval of the RDPE, ES agreements in existing NVZs entered into after 1 January 2007 will have to meet new requirements, related to effective implementation of the Nitrates Directive.
- These requirements will come into effect from the date of formal RDPE approval when the Commission Decision is published.
14. How do these revised requirements for ES link to the proposals to revise the Nitrates Action Programme?
- The requirements for ES are based on proposals in the Defra consultation on the revised Nitrates Action Programme (NAP).
- Consideration of the responses to the Defra consultation (which closed on 13 December) is now underway with a revised NAP planned to come into effect in the spring.
- When the revised NAP when it comes into force it will form the basis for an amended cross compliance requirement (Statutory Management Requirement 4).
15. Aren’t you pre-empting the results of the consultation on the revised Nitrates Action Programme by making these changes?
- If these changes had not have been made, the Commission would not have been able to approve Environmental Stewardship until the revised Nitrates Action Programme was in place.
- This would have seriously delayed the start of the new Programme and would have probably meant the temporary closure of Environmental Stewardship.
16. What will be the impact of these new scheme requirements on ES agreement holders?
- Although ES agreement holders in existing NVZs who have joined since January 2007 will have to meet these additional requirements in advance of other farmers in England (i.e. those not already in ES or with ERDP ES agreements), we anticipate that in practice there will be relatively little additional burden.
- This is because most of the requirements are only likely to be relevant when 08/09 cropping plans are under consideration i.e. in Summer 2008. By this time the separate ES requirements should have been overtaken by the revised NAP, which will apply to all farmers in England.
17. Why have the Management Plan options been withdrawn?
- The EU Commission was concerned about the need to ensure that agri-environment payments are only made for actions going beyond the legislative baseline (Cross Compliance and Statutory Management Requirements).
- The Commission concerned that both the Manure and Nutrient Management Plans duplicated what is likely to become a legislative requirement under the revised Nitrates Action Programme (due to be introduced in Spring 2008).
- They also had concerns that the distinction between the requirements of the Soil Management Plan and those of the cross compliance Soil Protection Review, which forms the legislative baseline, was insufficient to justify a paid option.
- The EU also felt that the Crop Protection Plan covered what should be covered under good farming practice, with very little added value for the taxpayer. Evidence in support of this view has also been presented in an independent evaluation commissioned by NE.
- Agreements entered into before 1 January 2007 will not be affected by this change and management plans will continue to attract appropriate payments for the remaining life of agreements.
18. Could the management plan options be reinstated?
- Defra and Natural England are working closely with the farming industry and stakeholders to see if we can build on the benefits of management plans and develop an alternative approach.
19. What will RPA inspectors do if they are inspecting holdings where the removal of management plans has removed any tolerance of the points threshold?
- Agreement holders who are close to the points threshold as a result of losing the management plans options should consider adding new options to replace their 'cushion' of points above the threshold.
- In carrying out inspections, RPA will report inspection findings as normal, but during the period of transition in which agreement holders with management plan options are adjusting their agreements, RPA will agree with NE how to apply the results on a case-by-case basis.
- In particular, RPA/NE would want to look sympathetically at cases where an inspection took place whilst the agreement holder was in the process of adding new options.
20. What will happen to those agreement holders with management plan options who may now wish to withdraw from ES?
- Natural England is committed to retaining all of the ES agreements entered into on a provisional basis and will work with customers to achieve this.
- However, any ES provisional agreement holders who cannot, with the removal of management plans, meet the 30 points/ha threshold will be entitled to withdraw from the scheme without penalty.
- Providing these agreement holders have met all the conditions of their agreement no payments will be recovered.
21. Why will a review clause be inserted in ES agreements?
- The EU Commission has asked us to insert a review clause in all agreements lasting longer than the Programme period (2007– 2013). A clause will be inserted into any agreements running beyond 2015 to the effect that the agreement will be reviewed in 2012.
22. When will these changes be made?
- Natural England have begun the process of amending provisional ES agreements following formal approval of the RDPE towards the end of December 2007.
- NE hope to amend all agreements by the end of June.
23. When will agreement holders know about the changes to be made to their agreement?
- At the time of issue of their provisional agreements, all agreement holders were notified that their agreements may be subject to change following RDPE approval.
- Natural England have now written to all provisional agreement holders to inform them about the additional requirements and advising them of the next steps
24. Will changes be made to the Scheme literature?
- The changes resulting from RDPE approval will be included in the revised Scheme handbooks that are due to be published in the Summer. Prior to that, an insert detailing the changes will be issued with application packs.
Progress under Environmental Stewardship
25. How many farmers have signed up to Entry Level Stewardship?
- Ministers are committed to keeping Entry Level Stewardship (ELS) open to all farmers. So far, around 32,000 farmers have joined ELS covering over 4.7 million hectares of farmland - about half of all England's farmed land.
26. Can you guarantee that ESA and CSS agreements which expire over the next 6 years will be transferred into Higher Level Stewardship?
- No. All applications will be considered on their merits. In some cases Entry Level Stewardship, which wasn't previously available, may be more appropriate.
27. What's happening with the review progress under Environmental Stewardship?
- An ongoing research and monitoring programme, undertaken by Defra and Natural England, is in place to ensure that ES is delivering its stated objectives and incorporating the most up to date scientific knowledge.
- This research and monitoring has been used to inform the review of progress under ES. The review has now been completed and the recommendations will be published following agreement with Defra Ministers. Implementation of changes from the review will be introduced over the next couple of years, following completion of the relevant EU notification/approval processes. The next formal review of ES will take place as part of the RDPE mid-term evaluation in 2010.
The English Woodland Grant Scheme (EWGS)
EWGS in the Rural Development Programme 2007-2013
28. How much money is available for forestry in the new Programme?
- Of the total budget of £231 million Ministers have made available to forestry, at least £190 million will support RDPE forestry payments via EWGS and the closed WGS and Farm Woodland Schemes. The balance will be used to support woodland regeneration, SSSI target delivery and forestry partnership schemes.
- Around £120 million is currently committed to payments due under the various schemes over the new programme period.
- In addition, the Forestry Commission is working with the Regional Development Agencies on the possibilities for funding economic investments in forestry such infrastructure, training, processing and marketing.
29. Is the English Woodland Grant Scheme open?
- The Forestry Commission opened for EWGS applications for the 2008/09 claim year at the end of May 2007.
- The Forestry Commission began issuing contracts for Woodland Regeneration Grant in September under separate State Aid approval.
- In order to support work during the current planting season it was agreed that from the beginning of December the Forestry Commission could issue contracts for urgent Woodland Creation and SSSI Woodland Improvement work.
- Once the legal decision formally approving the Programme is published, hopefully by the new year, the Forestry Commission will be issuing contracts for all grant types
Note -
Agreement is being sought with other countries within the UK on a working definition of 'farmer' as it affects Farm Woodland Payments (FWP). While this definition is being clarified, FWP contracts for applicants in the 'non-farmer' category are not being issued. (Further information is available in the Forestry Commission’s Prospectus for 2007)
Progress with the English Woodland Grant Scheme (EWGS):
30. How many people have so far joined the EWGS?
- The EWGS opened for business in July 2005. By 31 December 2006, around 2400 applications had been approved under the 2000-2006 England Rural Development Programme.
- By the end of November 2007 a further 1000 EWGS applications were under consideration. Since payments started in April 2006 over £11m of grant has been paid.
31. What plans are there to review progress under the EWGS?
- A review of progress under the EWGS is being considered alongside the ES review described above.
Page last modified:
18 March, 2008
Page published: 21 July, 2005