Andy Cato is co-founder of Wildfarmed and is one half of Groove Armada: "Anytime I speak to a non-farming audience, I make a point of reminding them that farmers only need financial support because for decades, they have been forced to sell food at or below the price of producing it."
Distressed families on farms across England are absorbing the news that no new SFI applications will be accepted, with immediate effect.
The website still says, 'if we need to close applications, we will give you six weeks' notice'.
With BPS essentially gone and three years of wild weather that has cost farmers dearly, what now?
There are 37,000 SFI schemes across England's 100,000 farms.
With software quirks meaning that many farms have multiple agreements, the actual number of farms receiving payments will be much lower.
Fewer still have a scheme extensive enough to support a farming transition; most were just beginning to embrace a complex new world.
The most popular option is for an annual soil plan, worth £6/ha.
Anytime I speak to a non-farming audience, I make a point of reminding them that farmers only need financial support because for decades, they have been forced to sell food at or below the price of producing it.
The great opportunity of SFI was for more holistic support of farmers as land stewards; rewarding them for growing quality food whilst improving soils and nature.
We know, and can measure, that this offers superb return on investment.
As an example, £2.65 billion (the entire farming budget) has been spent on flood protection for 66,000 properties this year.
The Environment Agency estimates that 8 million homes will be at risk from flooding by 2050.
Investing in farmers who are building healthy soils is the only affordable way to mitigate this.
LISTEN NOW:
Then there's the £27.2bn allocated to carbon capture and storage over the next 25 years.
This is what plants do, and the long-term nature of this investment is exactly what farmers need to transition.
As for nature, there are various estimates of the cost of nature loss, all in trillions of dollars.
Ultimately this is academic given that no species survives the death of its ecosystem.
Our health, nature, rivers and ability to feed ourselves in a changing climate, all depend on supporting farmers to combine nature and food production.
PLEDGE YOUR SUPPORT: Join Íæż½ã½ã's Save Britain's Family Farms campaign
I know this is understood by many in Defra with whom I have been working for several years now, trying to help ensure we do not force farmers into choosing between nature and food.
Yet more widely in Government, it seems that the realities of farm economics are still not understood, and that supporting farmers for nature-rich food production is seen as a subsidy rather than the most valuable of investments.
At Wildfarmed, our years of work in outcomes measurement are beginning to bear fruit.
As an example, water companies are now making direct payments to our growers of £300+/ha in avoiding water pollution.
Building on this, we are working hard to measure, value and create markets for nature.
All we ask of Government is to support the transition; provide certainty for a while.
Like the Germans did with solar, the price of which dropped 90% in 15 years.
What happened this week is a huge blow to confidence that future support can be relied upon.
Money is tight and there are of course difficult decisions to be made.
But the entire farming budget is the same as London transport subsidies.
Drones and missiles will not protect us if there is no bread.
