Campaign for the Farmed Environment

DEFRA has released its latest estimates of areas of land under voluntary environmental management.  The ‘Campaign for the Farmed Environment – Survey of Land Managed Voluntarily in 2014/15 Farming Year (England)’ also includes farmers’ responses to awareness and attitudes to the Campaign.  The results showed a large decrease of 41% in the area of land under voluntary environmental management compared to 2013/14.  Approximately 269,000 hectares were under voluntary environmental management in 2014/15.  However, it may may not necessarily mean all of this land has come out of environmental management, it could just be that it is now being used to satisfy the Ecological Focus Area (EFA) rules under the Basic Payment Scheme and therefore not classed as voluntary. 

The release states that 35% of farmers reported they would have to meet the new EFA requirements.  Of these, 47% were using fallow to support this, of which 18,000 hectares had extra voluntary enhancements included on this land.  Just over half (51%) thought they had either ‘some’ or a ‘good’ understanding of the CFE.

The CFE was introduced in 2009 after the end of set-aside as an alternative to the Government putting in place some kind of compulsory scheme.  It is a industry-led voluntary partnership aimed at improving the environment in lowland England.  The full release can be found at https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/439452/landenvmanagement-statsnotice-30jun15.pdf