More EFA Details Emerge

More details are starting to emerge on how farmers might satisfy the new Ecological Focus Area (EFA) requirement under greening.  To re-cap (and simplify) those claiming the new Basic Payment from 2015 who have more than 15 hectares of arable land will be required to put 5% of their holding into EFA.  Until now, the precise EFA rules had not been clear, but with the detailed legislation starting to be written at an EU level, more information is emerging.

One unanswered question was what land was going to be included under the vague heading ‘landscape features’.  The reform agreement also promised a ‘matrix’ for EFA.  This would convert linear features such as hedges into an area equivalent for EFA, and also give certain land different weighting when it comes to calculating EFA.  A draft of this matrix has now been produced and was published in the Scottish consultation on CAP reform (see December article).  The figures and definitions are still open to change.  The matrix is re-produced below;

Firstly, the types of area that should qualify under the ‘landscape features’ are indicated.   As well as hedges, which always seemed likely to appear, it can now be seen that many other features commonly found on UK farms will also count towards EFA – including ponds, stone walls, trees, and ditches.  There is also some indication of the definitions that will be applied in terms of sizes.  It seems that only relatively small ponds and field copses will be allowed for example.

The weighting factor indicates that some land will generate more EFA than its face value.  This is true for many of the landscape features, where a weighting of 1.5 means that each hectare of physical land will contribute 1.5 hectares towards the EFA requirement.

Conversely, catch crops and nitrogen fixing crops have a weighting of less than one.  This means more land will be needed to meet the requirement.  For example, 3.33 hectares of field beans will be required to produce 1 hectare of EFA. 

Where the weighting factor is more than one, national governments have a choice not to use the higher figure.  Where the weighting is less than 1 (i.e. the crop options), the use of the weighting figure is mandatory.

Of course, such information tends to prompt a further set of questions.  For example;

• what are the management rules for fallow land or for field margins?
• what counts as a catch crop or green cover?
• are there any restrictions on inputs for nitrogen fixing crops?
• can ditch/hedges combinations count for two lotsof EFA?
• if there are gaps in a hedge, does it still count as a hedge? 
• what about features that lie between two farms – will they have to be split between neighbours?
• what is the difference between a buffer strip and a field margin?

Probably the biggest question remains how this is going to interact with existing agri-environmental schemes – especially the ELS in England.  The double funding rules suggest that any feature being included in a current ELS agreement could not count towards the EFA.  Therefore, Stewardship margins and hedges would be excluded.  This would make EFAs far more ‘penal’ for many farmers.  Some kind of compromise may well be worked out.  For example it has been suggested that the ELS is paying for the management of hedgerows, whilst the EFA is simply requiring they exist.  Such semantics may see features being able to count towards both ELS and EFA.

Not least of the questions is how all this is going to be recorded and policed.  No doubt this information will become clearer in due course.  In the meantime we are at least a little clearer on the rules the industry faces next year.