The Government has had a tense relationship with farmers (Image: Getty)
Ministers have released a roadmap to give farmers confidence to battle extreme weather and slash reliance on expensive fertilisers “beyond the next harvest”.
The plan includes an extra £53 million for the farming innovation programme – bringing total funding for this year to £123 million – with dedicated cash for robotics and soil health and water management.
Seasonal worker visas will continue to 2030, to support the horticulture sector, the Environment Department (Defra) said.
The roadmap sets out how farmers can reduce reliance on costly fertilisers, where prices have climbed following the Iran war and adapt to the growing climate impacts of heatwaves, drought and flooding through “nature-based solutions” such as improving health of soils and managing water.
Tom Bradshaw, president of the National Farmers Union, said: “After nearly two years of waiting for this roadmap, it’s good to see resilience, profitability, productivity and sustainability at its heart – all areas we’ve been urging the government to focus on. The government is right to say that the national security context has changed. Combined with climate and economic shocks, the fragilities of our food system now feel very exposed, and we need to move rapidly into delivery mode to turn this around.
“However, while the roadmap is full of ambition, it falls short on action and even shorter on the means of delivery.
“The roadmap sets out a welcome multi-year direction for farming, yet there is no long-term funding to go with it. Intent alone won’t deliver a secure and affordable supply of homegrown food for the nation, nor care for 70% of England’s landscape.
“The Treasury is conspicuously absent in this plan. Instead, it tips the balance of risk even more onto the shoulders of farmers, with much of the investment expected to come from business bank accounts which have been sucked dry over recent years due to soaring costs and unsustainably low margins.”
The long term roadmap comes after a Government-commissioned review by former National Farmers’ Union president Baroness Batters into farm profitability, and ministers say they are taking immediate action in response.
David Bean, of the Countryside Alliance, said: “While we haven’t yet seen the detail of this new plan, on its face it’s encouraging to see the government taking the future of British farming seriously. In addition to the extra funding for innovation, it’s especially welcome that the government is taking new steps to account fully for the value the food and farming sector produces every year.
“Clearly the government is experiencing some instability at the moment but the work of supporting our farmers must continue.”
The Government’s agri-environmental programme, the environmental land management schemes, will become more focused and targeted, while long-term payments for “public goods” such as creating wildlife habitat will continue.
Ministers have had a tense relationship with farmers following their proposed inheritance tax raid – which they partly U-turned on last December.
Environment Secretary Emma Reynolds said: “Farmers feed our nation and manage the land that shapes our countryside, yet their contribution has never been valued in the way it deserves.
“Our roadmap marks a shift away from only looking to the next harvest and towards a plan that gives farmers the long-term clarity they need to innovate, invest and grow with confidence for generations to come.
“I have spent every day in this role rebuilding our relationship with farmers brick by brick because they’re such an important part of our economy, our society and our environment.”