UK farmers to be paid to restore soil health

🔎  What’s going on?

On the 2nd of December, it was announced that for the first time ever, UK farmers will be paid to look after soil health from next year. The new Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) is the first government subsidy program to start from 2022.

🌳  What does this mean?

This is one of the government programs that forms England’s new agricultural policy. It will replace the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), post-Brexit. The SFI is the first out of three new Environmental Land Management (ELM) schemes the UK government is introducing next year as part of the 25 Year Environment Plan. 

The UK government will pay farmers between £20 and £58 per hectare to protect and nurture soils. Almost all farmers will be eligible in England. Annually, farmers will be paid: 

• £22 - £40 per hectare for conserving and restoring arable and horticultural soils;
• £28 - £58 per hectare for conserving grassland soils;
• £148 per hectare for conserving moorland and rough grazing land.

Over the summer, a pilot program of this scheme ran with over 900 farmers. The purpose of the SFI scheme is to:

• Drastically improve the health of our soils;
• Contribute to the UK’s efforts to reach Net Zero; and 
• Help us assess the condition of the moorlands which have not yet been investigated.

The Rural Payments Agency (RPA) will be responsible for facilitating SFI and contracts will last 3 years, that can be renewed thereafter. The scheme is currently only for farmers that are already eligible for the Basic Payment Scheme (BPS), after 2024 the scheme will expand to include farmers not registered for BPS. 

❓ Why should I care?

Let’s start with the fact that soil is a very important store of carbon dioxide. It is the second-largest carbon sink in the world after the ocean, playing a vital role in the Planet’s carbon cycle. It also regulates the movement of water and contributes to nutrient cycles such as nitrogen and phosphorus. Healthy soil includes a combination of good soil structure, organic matter and will be teeming with biodiversity that includes earthworms, hundreds of different fungi, insects, and thousands of bacteria species. 

However, in the UK alone, soil organic matter (SOM) is estimated to have fallen by about 40 to 60% within the past 60 years, due to intensive agriculture or poor land management. This is usually referred to as ‘soil degradation'. SOM refers to plant and animal waste that is in different stages of breakdown that forms a rich ‘compost’. The more SOM there is in soil, the more carbon is stored. 

🚦 Where do we need to be?

In order to fully utilise soil as a carbon sink, we should aim to increase the organic matter in soil, in the UK, and across the world. Regenerative agriculture is a specific method of farming that helps build and store carbon in the soil. Other methods such as Agroforestry (grow crops around trees) and Permaculture (a design philosophy that respects nature and ecosystems) should also be introduced to help build soil. 

Extensions to the SFI scheme announced will also see farmers receiving payment for activities like water stewardship, hedgerow improvement, tree planting, and reducing livestock farming, which will be announced in the coming months and next year.

Avoid monocultures (growing one single crop in a large area such as palm oil) as they are damaging to the soil. The antidote is to increase the variety of plants in any agricultural land.

👤  What can I do about it?

As an individual, you can: 

1. Support organic farming
2. Allow your garden to rewild, here are more tips
3. Plant bee and insect friendly wildflowers 
4. Feed birds in your garden by leaving out some water and having a bird feeder
5. Build a small pond in your garden as it naturally attracts biodiversity
6. Avoid the use of pesticides and chemicals

As a farmer or business that relies on raw materials from agriculture, you can: 

1. Practise agroforestry that involves growing crops around trees, hedges, and other plants 
2. Increase the number of plants and animals on your land in general
3. Encourage earthworms! No seriously. Earthworms are so crucial to soil. They help break down all the organic matter in soil. 
4. Cover up bare soil with plants - in agriculture speak, this means cover crops. 
5. Plant more trees in farmland
6. Design crop rotations to improve soil health
7. Support organic farming 
8. Consider introducing hydroponics (soil-less farming) and aquaponics (man-made system to grow fish and plants)

Related: Definition of ecocide could turn the tide on climate change

Photo by Roman Synkevych on Unsplash