Red diesel has surpassed 130p per litre and fertiliser quotes over £1,000 per tonne are not uncommon. Prices paid at the farm gate are beginning to track upwards across the board but crucially, all remain behind ballooning costs for farmers. Research by Harper Adams University does suggest there may be marginal consolation for agriculture in the form of farm shops; almost two-thirds are expecting improvements on already strong sales witnessed throughout the pandemic. Elsewhere, the Tree Production Innovation Fund will reopen to encourage more tree planting in England, despite a new report from the National Audit Office stating that Defra will likely miss its planting targets.

FOOD & FARMING

Global effects of Ukraine conflict continue
The effects of the conflict in Ukraine continue to ripple through supply chains across the world. Wheat prices for the May 2022 contract were hitting £265 per tonne as we wrote the previous edition of Landscope (2 March). At the time of writing on 21 March, UK feed wheat (May-22) futures are at £300 per tonne, however at these inflated prices only a limited number of contracts are being fulfilled.

Farmers in Ireland are already looking to grow extra grain, according to Agriculture Minister Charlie McConalogue. While Mr McConalogue has confirmed he will ask farmers to grow more grain, he also said “it is far from certain that asking all farmers to plant crops is the best use of the resources”. Ireland is particularly exposed to fluctuations in the global wheat supply chain; the nation is dominated by beef and dairy producers who are reliant on imported grain to supplement grass-based rations. Around 60% of the 5.5 million tonnes used every year is sourced from overseas. Farmers in Australia are being tipped as the most likely to make up for the loss of grain from Russia and Ukraine. Unaffected by last year’s drought in the Northern Hemisphere, the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences has predicted a record wheat crop of 36.3 million tonnes, up 5% on the previous year’s record harvest. The EU is also forecasting a 9% increase in production of common wheat.

At the same time, Brent crude oil futures have fallen below $100 a barrel for the first time since the start of March in response to Black Sea peace talks and China’s COVID-19 infection rate concerns. Natural gas has followed a similar trajectory but remains over 90% up on prices for the same time last year. As a result, input costs continue to grow at a faster rate than prices paid for outputs; red diesel prices have topped 130p per litre and the price of ammonium nitrate is close to three times the prices paid for wheat (it is usually between 1.5 and 2 times).

Further difficulties are likely to emerge for farmers in the future, with Ukraine being one of the largest countries of origin for work visa holders in the UK in the past two years. In 2021, Ukrainians were the second most common nationality to be granted work visas to come to the UK, largely due to the seasonal workers visa. The seasonal workers visa was introduced to address shortages in labour following the UK’s exit from Europe. Ukrainians have been by far the biggest users of this route, which admitted nearly 30,000 people in 2021, more than two thirds of the seasonal workers who stepped in to replace the EU labour force. Although Ukrainian workers currently in the UK on seasonal visas will have their visas automatically extended, it is not known how many workers fall into this group. The UK’s visa services in Ukraine are also currently suspended.

Funding for farmers
Defra and the Rural Payments Agency has published a summary page of funding streams available to farmers in England. Potential streams include:

• Environmental land management funding

•Trees, animal health, slurry, and protected landscape funding

• Innovation, technology, research, and development funding

• Funding for new entrants

• Funding for those leaving farming.

For more information on funding for farmers, please contact Georgina Sweeting in our Food and Farming team.

POLICY

Water resources charge proposals
In August 2021, the Environment Agency (EA) published its consultation on ‘Water resources charge proposals from April 2022’, which sought to address “considerable pressures on water resources throughout the country”. A summary of responses to this consultation has now been published. On the surface, around two in five of those who answered the question indicated that they were satisfied with the proposals, compared to one in five who were not. The remainder were neither satisfied nor dissatisfied.

In response to public feedback, the EA has made the following changes to the proposals:

• Changed the charges for hydroelectric power to be based on power generation

•Created a specific table of charges for ground-source heat pumps

• Variations which are solely to reduce volume abstracted will have a zero charge

• Non-commercial schemes created solely created for environmental benefit will have reduced charges.

New environmental targets announced
A consultation on plans to introduce new environmental targets under the Environment Act 2021 has been launched. The Act requires the government to set at least one long-term target in each of the following areas: air quality; water; biodiversity; and resource efficiency and waste reduction. It also requires targets to be set for fine particulate matter (PM2.5) and species abundance. Targets proposed include:

• Water quality: reducing nutrient pollution and contamination from abandoned metal mines in water courses and improving water use efficiency

• Air quality: reduce exposure to PM2.5 by over a third compared to 2018 levels

• Biodiversity: introduce a legally binding target for species abundance by 2030 with a requirement to increase species populations by 10% by 2042

• Resource efficiency: halve the waste that ends up at landfill or incineration by 2042.

The consultation also includes the release of a nature recovery green paper and a separate consultation. The green paper includes “options to bring clarity and coherence to our framework for protected sites; to reform species protections; and to modernise funding arrangements”. Both consultations close on 11 May 2022.

AHDB reform receives mixed response
A consultation on proposals to deliver legislative reforms to the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (AHDB) Order concluded in January. The government has now published its analysis of responses to that consultation. Most of the 476 responses were from agricultural and horticultural levy payers. Most agreed with the following proposals:

• An end to end the statutory potato levy in Great Britain from April 2022 (75% agreed)

• The introduction of a regular vote for levy payers on how the levy is spent (87% agreed)

• Retain the right for levy payers to trigger a ballot on whether the levy should continue (79% agreed).

Proposal to end the statutory horticulture levy in Great Britain from April 2022 received a mixed response with around a third (32%) agreeing and 29% disagreeing. 37% said it was not applicable to them. Similarly, around one-third (36%) of responses approved of extending the scope of the AHDB Order to other agricultural sectors, while slightly less than a third (31%) did not support the proposal.

ENVIRONMENT & NATURAL CAPITAL

Landowner faces legal action
In late 2020, the Herefordshire Wildlife Trust found a section of the river Lugg “bulldozed, straightened and reprofiled into a sterile canal, with all bankside and riverside habitats completely obliterated”. Several notices were issued to the landowner by Natural England, the Forestry Commission and the Environment Agency (EA) requesting that all works cease.

The farmer previously said that he was given permission by the EA to undertake the work, saying “It’s legal, it took two years to get the licence… I’m probably the only chap on an SSSI licensed to lop trees”. However Natural England and the EA are now beginning legal action against him with the charges relating directly to “unconsented operations and causing damage to the SSSI”. The charges also relate to causing a water discharge activity, failing to take reasonable precaution to prevent agricultural pollution, wilfully disturbing spawn or spawning fish and breaching a stop notice. Court action is due to follow at Kidderminster Magistrates’ Court.

Are the regulatory bodies entirely blameless in these scenarios? A report by the Angling Trust alleges that “the different departments at the EA are not talking to each other, following or enforcing their own guidelines”. The Trust says the EA “has been presented with a dossier detailing a series of examples of unacceptable and unnecessary habitat destruction along the banks of no fewer than nine English rivers”. The Angling Trust report does not make clear what it sees as the EA's failure in the river Lugg case, however it does detail events where “one part of the EA support angling clubs to improve riparian habitats, to great effect, only for another EA department to come in and rip it out, often in the name of flood alleviation”.

Defra will miss tree-planting goals
The National Audit Office (NAO) has criticised Defra for setting a tree planting goal without considering whether it was realistic. Defra aims to plant 7,500 hectares of trees a year as part of the Trees Action Plan and said it based this target on historic planting rates and the availability of land but did not assess this evidence. England’s annual tree-planting rate has not risen above this rate at any point in the past 50 years and has only reached more than 6,000 hectares in three of the past 50, it said. Defra estimated that 1,400-1,900 hectares of new trees would be planted during 2021-2022 as part of its programme, but this is short of the 2,577 hectares it needed.

The NAO report did acknowledge that the department had worked “quickly under challenging circumstances” and launched seven new grant partnerships prior to the 2021-2022 planting season. Despite this, Defra needs to tackle several “significant challenges” to meet the programme’s targets, including:

• Increasing and sustaining landowner interest in tree planting

•Ensuring there is a sufficient skill base to support tree planting

• Expand the supply of seeds and saplings.

These challenges are made more difficult by several factors. Private landowners are being discouraged from planting trees due to uncertainty about future government funding, despite repeated assurances by ministers that no-one will be worse off by planting now, rather than under ELM (Environmental Land Management) schemes. Tree nurseries have also closed or reduced tree production in recent months and years due to various pressures. The NAO also criticised Defra’s long-term ambitions, stating that “Without managing the programme more firmly in the context of the long-term picture, Defra is unlikely to achieve value for money”.

Plans for beaver release move ahead
Public consultations are being carried out into plans which could see the reintroduction of beavers at a site within the Lake District by 2023. The Wild Ennerdale partnership wants to see beavers released along the whole stretch of the Riven Ehen, "from mountains to sea", with the first step being the release of three beaver family groups on land east of Ennerdale Water. According to the partnership, an "independent expert-led ecology feasibility study", completed in 2020, found that the valley "would be suitable for a multi-family beaver release". Ahead of the potential release in the spring of 2023, the team is carrying out a series of consultation events, both in-person and online. Beavers have previously been introduced in Cumbria, with two released on a Cumbrian country estate near Penrith as part of a five-year trial in October 2020. 

PROPERTY & DEVELOPMENT 

New laws to end ‘not spots’
Reforms to planning laws mean mobile network operators will get more freedom to make phone masts up to five metres taller and two metres wider than current rules allow. This should boost the range of masts, facilitate extra equipment for faster networks and make it easier to share infrastructure. As a result, fewer phone masts will be needed overall to provide improved 4G and 5G mobile coverage. To counteract the potential visual impacts of masts on landscapes, new legal duties will be imposed on operators to minimise the visual impact of network equipment, particularly in protected areas such as national parks, conservation areas, world heritage sites and areas of outstanding natural beauty.

In response to a consultation on the plans, the government confirmed it will make amendments to the Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) (England) Order 2015. The changes will include the right to strengthen existing masts without prior approval to allow upgrades for 5G. This would allow increases to the width of existing masts by up to either 50% or two metres (whichever is greatest) and, in unprotected areas, allow increases in height up to a maximum of 25 metres (previously 20 metres). There will also be the right to build new masts up to a maximum of 30 metres in unprotected areas and 25 metres in protected areas. Mobile operators will still need to obtain agreement from the landowner before building any new infrastructure. All new ground-based masts will also need to be approved by local authorities.

Nutrient neutrality requirements extended
Natural England has announced proposals for an additional 27 catchments covering 42 local authorities that will be required to achieve ‘nutrient neutrality’. This is in addition to the seven catchment areas and 32 local authorities already subject to the requirement for new housing development to achieve ‘nutrient neutrality’. This means that all new applications for housebuilding and outline permissions awaiting approval of reserved matters or those awaiting discharge of conditions, within the relevant areas, must achieve nutrient neutrality. As a result, local authorities can only approve homes if they are certain that the proposed development will have no negative effect on protected wetland areas. The move is part of a wider consultation on new targets under the Environment Act.

James Stevens, director for cities at the Home Builders Federation said the new rules could mean “tens of thousands more homes” could be stalled. He added “We had calculated that 60,000 homes have been delayed across 32 local authority areas before the addition today of a further 42 local authorities”.

As part of the same announcement, Environment Secretary George Eustice also announced a “nutrient calculator” from Natural England to “enable development to take place in a sustainable way”. The government is also offering £100,000 to each affected catchment to support cross-Local Authority work to meet Natural England requirements and enable development to continue. The secretary of state also said that the government has secured a series of pledges from water companies, namely Severn Trent Water, United Utilities, South West Water and Yorkshire Water, to provide new funding for nature-based ‘strategic solutions’ to tackle nutrient pollution.

Business & Economy

Pandemic demand helps lift farm shops
Britain’s farm retail sector is achieving estimated sales of £1.4 billion a year, following increased demand throughout the pandemic. Findings show that customers are attracted to farm retailers because of the quality of products, customer service and the farm setting. The study by the Farm Retail Association (FRA) and Harper Adams University estimates there to be close to 1,600 farm retailers across the nation, with almost nine in 10 (89%) of farm retailers reporting an increase in sales since 2019. Two-thirds (64%) are also anticipating increased sales in 2022. The sector employs approximately 25,000 people, however around a third (35%) of farms shops say the greatest challenge facing farm retailers is attracting talent or skilled staff.

OTHER RURAL NEWS

Funds for trees
The Tree Production Innovation Fund (TPIF) is now open for applications in England. New to the 2022 offer, applicants will be able to submit multi-year proposals spanning up to three financial years (ending March 2025). Projects can be valued at up to £300,000 per year and must address one or more of the following challenges:

1. How can better use be made of available seed and vegetative planting material?

2. How can growing systems be developed to enhance their efficiency and resilience to change?

3. How can innovative sustainable weed control solutions be used to reduce herbicide reliance?

The TPIF has been designed to encourage methods that will enhance the quantity, quality, and diversity of tree planting stock available for planting in England.

The Forestry Commission will be hosting a webinar event on Friday 25 March which hopes to answer questions about the TPIF application and evaluation processes. The event will also include talks from previously successful applicants highlighting some of the work being carried out under the 2021 fund. It will also be hosting a series of Woods into Management webinar events on Thursday 24 March. Topics include:

• Regional Woodland Restoration Innovation Funds

• Routes to Market for Ash Timber and Temporary Infrastructure Innovation Funds

• Timber in Construction Innovation Fund.

And finally…
What is your pig saying?
More than 400 pigs have made around 7,000 contributions to research by the University of Copenhagen. Why? To help us understand exactly what they are trying to tell us through their barks, grunts, and squeals. The study, published in the Scientific Reports journal, has classified different situations as ones in which pigs had either positive or negative emotions, to improve the welfare of pigs on farms. Here is the rather unsurprising guide of what to listen out for:

• Shorter grunts with slight change in amplitude means a happy pig

•Higher pitched grunts and squeals is a sign of a sad pig

• Grunts and barks, longer in duration, is a sign of a pig that is neither happy nor sad.