By FGP on 20th January 2020
With the long awaited Agriculture Bill stuck all last year, a stop gap version, The Farm Payments Bill, has been introduced to Parliament to allow ongoing support payments to farmers in 2020.
Meanwhile DEFRA Minister George Eustace was posed to introduce the reinvigorated Agriculture Bill to Parliament 16th January 2020. New elements introduced:
- Food security - requiring the UK government to regularly report on food security to parliament
- Financial assistance - monitoring, evaluating and regularly reporting on financial schemes
- Soil quality - helping farmers protect and improve soil quality, including monitoring and research
- Animal traceability - better data collection relating to identification, movements and animal health
- Fertiliser - effective regulation, including updated fertiliser definitions as technology advances
- Organics - powers to tailor regulations so producers can continue to trade organic produce globally
At the end of last year, the government launched a £50 million scheme to help boost tree-planting rates in the fight against climate change. The new Woodland Carbon Guarantee will encourage farmers and landowners to plant more trees and create new woodland in return for payments. This could be of interest to infrastructure operators because widespread tree planting might start to limit future utility corridors. The Nursery stock needed to provide for such major initiatives will take at least three years to build up unless mistakes from the past are repeated importing low grade alternatives.