Limited Landscape Features for EFA May 28, 2014 12:00 am English farmers will not be able to use all of the ‘landscape features’ in the optional list to count towards their Ecological Focus Areas (EFA) requirement. In fact, only hedges will be allowed for 2015. Some better news is that nitrogen-fixing crops will be allowed and there will be no restrictions on input use on these. DEFRA has also pledged that they ‘will allow the widest possible range of crop types’ under this category. This will almost certainly mean peas, beans and lupins will count towards EFA, and possibly other crops as well. These decisions come from the long-awaited DEFRA announcement on the implementation of greening. Although this clarifies a number of issues the full set of rules is still not quite complete. The announcement can be found on the DEFRA website via – https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/common-agricultural-policy-reform The full list of landscape features includes – hedges/wooded strips, isolated trees, lines of trees, groups of trees/copses, field margins, ponds, ditches and stone walls. Of these, only hedges will be allowed. This is actually quite a victory for the industry as, at one point, it seemed likely that DEFRA was seriously considering not allowing any landscape features to count towards EFA. The reason for this was, not surprisingly, mapping issues. The RPA recommended that no landscape features be allowed because things such as hedges, field trees, ditches etc. are not accurately recorded on the RLR. Although EU rules do not require landscape features to be mapped until after 2018, in the meantime manual inspections would be required to confirm the features exist. Therules state that 10% of eligible farms need to be inspected annually, which was seen as being too burdensome to the industry, and too expensive to administer. Excluding all the options would have required the 5% EFA requirement to be met by in-field options only. Far more land would have to have been taken out of production as a result (or swapped to alternative cropping) and the cost to the sector much greater. Industry lobbying has got hedges included but DEFRA states that there ‘will be implications on the timetable for processing claims from those claimants who wish to count hedges towards their EFA requirement’. In other words, if you use hedges, you may get paid later. Owen Paterson has even indicated that those using hedges for EFA may be requested to submit claims earlier. The RPA will issue further advice on this in due course. The announcement states that other landscape features may be added to the list in future years. This will occur as the mapping process in England improves. The current RLR is to be replaced by the Land Parcel Identification System (LPIS). Aside from hedges, the other land types eligible for EFA in 2015 will be fallow land, buffer strips, areas with catch-crops or green cover, and nitrogen fixing crops. The weightings given in the EU legislation will be applied in England (some of these were optional). The table below summarises the situation. The management rules are not yet fully known in all cases. The ones shown are those contained in EU legislation, it is possible that DEFRA could amend these. For example the minimum buffer strip width in England might actually be set at 5m. ECOLOGICAL FOCUS AREAS Feature per m for linear features, or m2 for area features Definition and Management Rules Conversion Factor m to m2 Weighting Factor EFA Area Land lying fallow No agricultural production, land out of production for >5 years remains ‘arable’ – 1.0 1.0 m2 Landscape Features: Hedges / Wooded strips Width up to 10m (i.e. if wider than this, it is not a ‘hedge’)* 5.0 2.0 10.0 m2 Buffer strips Minimum 1m width, maximum 10m, must be next to watercourses 6.0 1.5 9.0 m2 Catch crops and green cover Sown or undersown grass or seed mixtures, not for harvest, must be in place by 1st October – 0.3 0.3 m2 Nitrogen fixing crops Definitive list of crops still awaited. Likely to include beans, peas, lupins, soya and lucerne at the minimum. No restrictions on input use. – 0.7 0.7 m2 Source: EU Commission * no indication of how ‘gappy’ hedges to be treated This means that the options of agro-forestry (trees and farming in combination), woodland margins, short-rotation coppice and forested areas are not going to be allowed. As these will not have been excluded for mapping reasons, it seems that DEFRA has simply decided that they don’t provide enough environmental benefit. The relatively generous provisions on nitrogen-fixing crops seems to be a trade-off for the exclusion of most of the landscape features. The announcement indicates that the rules on these crops could be tightened-up in future years if environmental benefits are not seen. The Campaign for the Farmed Environment (CFE) will continue to operate to try and maximise the gains to the environment from greening. Pollinators will be a key target. At the same time there was an announcement on how greening is going to interact with agri-environment schemes. This basically confirms the process set out in our article of the 14th April. Because only ELS agreements signed after 1st January 2012 will be affected, DEFRA calculates that 90% of agreement-holders will be unaffected. One additional concession is made for those with agreements starting after 1st January 2012. Where there are surplus points in an ELS scheme, full payment will continue to be made as long as this surplus is enough to offset any reduction through double-funding. We will, of course, provide further information on all of this as it becomes available.
