Press Release

Welcome government move to retain green benefits of set aside land

25th July 2008

The Government should be congratulated on making an urgently needed move to protect the environment on farmland. 

This was the verdict of CPRE  today (Friday) to the decision by Hilary Benn, Secretary of State for the Environment, to take forward the key recommendation by Sir Don Curry’s expert group for a replacement for the set aside scheme. This will require farmers to put a percentage of their land into primarily environmental management.

‘This decision is good news for our wildlife, our rivers and streams and our landscapes. But we need to make sure enough land is dedicated to this task. We suggest this should be a minimum of 5% of cropped land which is not covered by any other green farming rules’ said Ian Woodhurst, CPRE’s senior farming campaigner.

CPRE is concerned that the proposed abolition of the set aside scheme by the European Union as part of its Heath Check of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) could have lead to damaging effects on the countryside, undoing years of good management through set-aside.

CPRE has lobbied hard for a new measure to provide important wildlife habitat, protect water bodies from pollution and add to the diversity of the farmed landscape, but which is also easy for farmers to implement.

‘It would have been a pity if all the public money spent over the years on ensuring that farm land provided much needed environmental benefits had been wasted. We urge Natural England and the Rural Payments Agency to press ahead with developing a measure that is practicable for farmers and which will mean the reformed CAP delivers more for the environment.’ Ian Woodhurst continued.

‘We hope that in the meantime farmers will continue to show that they can both produce food and manage our countryside by putting a small area of their land aside, as they were doing only a year or so ago.’ Ian Woodhurst concluded.