Defra Publish Further Details On Future Agricultural Payments

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) has published principles that will be used to guide the approach to setting payment rates for environmental schemes during the agricultural transition.

The principles aim to ensure schemes provide good value for money whilst achieving ambitious environmental outcomes.

The policy paper sets out the following four principles for environmental land management payments with further detail provided:

• Defra will set payment rates to encourage wide participation, whilst fairly and effectively paying farmers for achieving environmental and climate outcomes.
• Defra want payments that, as far as possible, recognise and pay for outcomes that can be delivered through a wide range of activities.
• Defra want payments which recognise the value of existing natural assets and don’t unfairly disadvantage those who are already protecting and enhancing these assets to achieve good environmental and climate outcomes.
• Defra want payments that form part of a growing market for environmental outcomes, where scheme participants can earn income from public and private sector sources.

Further details about how much they will pay will be set out on launch of each scheme.