Will set aside's environmental benefits be set adrift?

9 July 2009

CPRE today (Thursday) expressed serious concern at the decision by the Secretary of State for the Environment to adopt a voluntary approach to retaining the environmental benefits previously delivered by the abolished set aside policy. Farmers will now be responsible for deciding whether to provide these benefits and how they are delivered.

CPRE had instead called for a mandatory replacement measure to help ensure farmers manage enough land in a way that would continue to provide important wildlife habitat, protect water bodies from pollution and add to the diversity of the farmed landscape.

"CPRE hopes that the voluntary approach will live up to its promises, and we will be watching to ensure that it does. It will be vital that all farmers step up to the plate and play their part in making it a success. If they do not, the prospects for developing voluntary approaches to meet the environmental challenges we will need to face in the future will be seriously undermined" said Ian Woodhurst, CPRE’s senior farming campaigner.

CPRE has long recognised the value of the countryside management that farmers undertake and welcomes industry-led initiatives for delivering environmental policy objectives. But we have a number of concerns about the farming industry’s proposals.

In particular, we are concerned that some farmers may opt to only manage the bare minimum of their land, leaving it up to others to undertake more of the environmental actions that are needed.

"The voluntary approach is risky. If grain prices rise again, as they did recently, the temptation to take land out of environmental management and put as much of it into production as possible could be irresistible for those farmers who choose to put profit before the environment.

"If that were to happen, and the voluntary approach failed to work, it could be difficult to restore the environmental benefits that set aside has provided over the last two decades. This could lead to even greater regulatory burdens on farmers in the future." Ian Woodhurst concluded.