Source · Select Committees · Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee
Recommendation 11
11
Paragraph: 69
It is important that the Sustainable Farming Incentive does not repeat the failures of previous...
Recommendation
It is important that the Sustainable Farming Incentive does not repeat the failures of previous agri-environment schemes like Entry Level Stewardship, which achieved high uptake but failed to drive significant environmental delivery. It must also not create perverse incentives or fail to reward existing good practice. The SFI should form part of a process, supporting farmers to deliver more and more for the environment over time. Defra should set out in its response to this Report how the Sustainable Farming Incentive will reward existing good practice at the same time as encouraging farmers to undertake new environmental activities. It should also explain how the SFI will support improved environmental delivery over time.
Paragraph Reference:
69
Government Response
Acknowledged
HM Government
Acknowledged
Sustainable Farming Incentive delivery will be based on a suite of standards that go beyond the legal regulatory baseline. Each standard will be made up of different levels of ambition or payment rates. As environmental performance increases with each level of ambition so does the payment available. This structure allows farmers already delivering high environmental performance to be rewarded, while also providing an incentive for others to improve over time by adding more standards to their agreement to cover a wider range of activities, and by progressing to higher levels of ambition within each standard. We will be introducing more standards over time and expect farmers to increase their coverage and levels of ambition over time – the scheme is designed to encourage and reward this.