2016 Greening Guidance Wales

The Welsh Government has published the 2016 guidance booklet for Greening.  Although the rules remain largely the same there have been a number of updates;

• Wooded strips will qualify for EFA, with the same conditions applied as hedges.
• Gaps of up to 4m will be permitted in hedges (and wooded strips).
• EFA features can be separated from arable land by up to 5m, i.e a hedge separated from the crop by a 4m track will be eligible.
• Land sown with pure leguminous/herbaceous forage crops (i.e. not mixtures) will be classified as arable. Our understanding was this was the case in 2015 also but there seems to have been some confusion so the point has been reiterated.
• If EFA or Crop Diversification rules are breached more than once in any three years the total area arable will be used for penalties (rather than 50%). 

The document makes a number of mentions to a ‘geospatial aid application’ , from our understanding this just seems to be the online application system which will include maps – but perhaps we are over simplifying!  The full guidance can be found at – http://gov.wales/docs/drah/publications/150812-bps-greening-guidance-2016-en.pdf