Land management can be part of the solution, as using land to slow down water and reduce the frequency or impact of flooding is a clear public good. Experts have however criticised Ministers for focusing too heavily on nature-based solutions, highlighting that it isn’t the solution in all scenarios. Whilst the consequences are less visible, rural areas are also affected by poor telecommunication infrastructure; could this change with the roll out of 5G? Test projects have just been announced to trial the use of 5G technology to track crop growth, monitor livestock and reduce water pollution. Will the approaching Budget contain additional funding for either of these issues? In its pre-Budget submission, the CLA has proposed an innovative taxation simplification for diversified farm businesses, which would allow them to invest with more flexibility.

FOOD & FARMING

What can we do about floods?
The UK has endured two storms and persistent wet weather for months. Most recently storm Dennis hit just a week after storm Ciara caused havoc across much of the UK. Defra secretary George Eustice has now said future agricultural policy will pay farmers to implement flood prevention measures. He added that the Government had committed to spend an extra £4 billion on flood defences.

The UK Farming Roundtable has called for an exemption from the Basic Payment Scheme ‘three-crop rule’ as many farmers are unable to plant crops. The Roundtable said “we are facing an unprecedented situation. Relentless rain has meant some farmers haven’t been able to get on their land since the autumn”. The NFU also wants the Government to broaden the Farming Recovery Fund to help flood-hit farmers with any uninsurable losses.

Experts have criticised Ministers for focusing too heavily on nature-based solutions. Professor Roger Falconer from the University of Cardiff said woody dams were like a plaster which would work on a small cut “but not a 10-inch wound.” Instead he advocated flood control dams, such as the one built at Skipton in North Yorkshire in 2018. In periods of high flow it holds back up to 111 million gallons of water in a designated reservoir area, protecting 378 homes and 165 businesses from flooding. Jim Hall, professor of climate at The University of Oxford, said there is not enough data on the effectiveness of natural flood management. He added “you can calculate how much water a dam is going to hold and in what conditions it is going to go over the top.”

Cannabis venture launched
A new service will offer advice to those looking to grow and export medical cannabis. Crop17 is a marketing initiative between Savills, Hanway Associates and CambridgeHOK and offers a turnkey advisory solution for growers and investors looking to establish and operate legal medical cannabis facilities in the UK. Crop17 can advise on the suitability of sites, equipment and the regulations surrounding the growing of the plant in the UK. Savills director Alex Bragg said “The UK agriculture sector is embarking upon a period of unprecedented change and, for forward thinking and innovative farmers, adapting into new markets is a key priority”.

Savills has also released a Spotlight on Hemp Cultivation in the UK. The report covers the potential of both medical cannabis and industrial hemp and the key differences between the two. It also analyses how attitudes are changing towards the plant both in the UK and around the world.

Defra confirms 2021 direct payment cuts
In England direct payments will start reducing in 2021 as part of Defra's plans for them to be phased out over a seven year transition period between 2021 and 2027. The payment reduction bands and maximum percentages which will be applied in 2021 have just been confirmed and are unchanged from when they were first announced in 2018. The structure adopted can be considered similar to income tax, the direct payment will be split into bands, and the element of the payment which falls into higher bands will be reduced by a larger percentage. There will be no cap on payment sizes, instead the top band applies a reduction of up to 25% to the element of a payment over £150,000. If you would like to model how your direct payment could reduce over the transition period, please ask your local Savills Food & Farming consultant for a copy of our subsidy reduction calculator.

Calls for data-driven farming
UK agriculture must pursue practical and data-led solutions to improve productivity. A report by the Food & Drink Sector Council’s (FDSC) Agricultural Productivity Working Group (APWG) has made a series of recommendations:

• Agriculture must become more data driven

• Develop the Evidence for Farming Initiative to improve knowledge exchange

• Align innovation funding and strategy to industry needs

• Create a professional body for farming and horticulture

• Address the low uptake of agricultural skills and training

• Address the need for infrastructure and policy to enable productivity gains e.g. 5G coverage

Sir Peter Kendall, member of the FDSC and chairman of the APWG, said “farming is at the beginning of a revolution that will leave big chunks of the industry unrecognisable from today.” He added “we could be so much more effective through achieving unity of purpose.”

Scotland’s moving to low carbon farming
To help Scottish agriculture reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to support sustainable farming and land use, a £40 million Agricultural Transformation Programme is being developed by the Scottish Government. It will offer practical and effective solutions which help protect and restore habitats.

Another project will focus on cutting greenhouse gas emissions from the Scottish suckler herd. The farmer-led group will explore how breeding, feeding and land management changes could improve the efficiency, productivity and profitability of Scottish beef.

A Rural Innovation Support Service group is investigating the feasibility of reintroducing sugar beet production and processing in eastern Scotland. Rather than targeting sugar for human consumption the motivation is to help mitigate climate change by producing bioethanol and other plant-based biotech products. A refinery would need 20,000 hectares of sugar beet to be grown on land of class 3.1 or better, within a 30 to 60 mile radius of its location.

Weather forces farmers hands for spring drilling
The window for drilling winter wheat closes in less than a week. In our recent survey over two thirds (66%) of farmers said they were now planning for spring barley to be the largest crop established on their bare ground. There is some interest in growing spring wheat in place of the planned winter cereals, but not as the primary crop; only 4% were planning for it to be their largest crop. In mid-February when we ran the survey, 13% still intended for their largest crop to be winter wheat, but storms Ciara and Dennis have since added to farmers’ difficulties by saturating fields again.

Farmers’ views on the wet weather are mixed with 55% considering it to be a one off and 41% believing it is a consequence of a more variable climate. Whatever the reason, 41% of the farmers taking part in the survey are planning to make changes in response to the weather. Of those, 67% intend to change their machinery, 62% plan to change the crops they grow and 48% plan to revise their usual crop rotation. To help fight blackgrass many are drilling winter cereals later than compared to 10 years ago (62%). Yet the last six months highlight the incompatibility between this control strategy and predictions that our winters will become increasingly wet. It is also dependent on the herbicide glyphosate which had a troubled licence renewal process the last time around.

POLICY

Seasonal workers scheme expanded
Farms will be able to hire up to 10,000 temporary workers from outside the EU in 2020. This is quadruple what was permitted by the Seasonal Workers Pilot in 2019 when farms reported staff shortages of 10-20%. Approximately 80,000 seasonal agricultural workers are required every year by the UK, 99% of which come from countries within the EU. Defra Secretary George Eustice said farmers have made a “powerful case” for needing more workers and the expanded pilot scheme would allow the Government to “test our future approach further”. NFU President Minette Batters said “growers remain very concerned” and urged the Government to commit to delivering a full scheme in 2021.

The increase in seasonal labour comes amidst a wider crackdown on so-called “cheap labour”. A new points-based immigration system will end free movement. Instead, potential migrants to the UK will have to score 70 points and meet three essential conditions:

• Hold a job offer from an approved sponsor

• The job is at the required skill level

• Speak English at the required level

Those with a PhD, a job earning over £23,039 or a job listed as a shortage occupation will gain additional points. Home Secretary Priti Patel said Britain’s eight million “economically inactive” adults can take the place of low-skilled overseas workers. Figures show that the majority of those are students, sick, carers or retired. Only around 33,000 are described as “discouraged workers”. Economists have said pay may have to rise to compensate for the loss of EU workers.

George Eustice gets promoted
George Eustice has replaced Theresa Villiers as Defra Secretary just seven months after her appointment. He is MP for Camborne and Redruth and was formerly farming and fisheries minister. Mr Eustice has a horticultural background and his family still run a fruit farm in Cornwall. His appointment makes him the seventh Environment Secretary since 2010. He has been joined at Defra by Victoria Prentis, MP for North Oxfordshire, who has been appointed as a Parliamentary Under Secretary of State. Ms Prentis is a farmer’s daughter and says she is a “passionate environmentalist and supporter of the rural economy”. Fay Jones, MP for Brecon and Radnorshire has also joined Defra as a Parliamentary Private Secretary. Ms Jones has previously worked for Defra and the NFU.

ENVIRONMENT & NATURAL CAPITAL

Savills GWCT Game and Conservation Benchmarking survey launches
Our industry leading game and conservation benchmarking can help shoots increase profitability or manage the costs of private/family run shoots. It includes information such as environmental performance, costs per bird put down, gamekeepers’ salaries and prices charged per bird. Participants receive a detailed benchmarking report which compares their shoot's vital statistics to averages for similar sized shoots. It contains exclusive statistics and trends which are not published elsewhere. Participation is confidential and free; click here for more details and to access the e-survey.

Countryside Stewardship scheme opens
The application window for the Countryside Stewardship scheme (CS) has opened for 2021 agreements. The Government will be rolling out a national pilot in 2021 to test how its planned Environmental Land Management Scheme (ELMS) works on the ground. Those signed up to CS who secure a place in the ELMS pilot from 2021, or wish to enter the scheme when it is fully rolled out from 2024, will be able to leave their CS agreements at agreed exit points without penalty. Alternatively they can remain within CS as the Government has guaranteed that all CS agreements confirmed by the end of 2020 will be funded for their full lifetime.

General licences to be reissued
Six general licences for the control of wild birds will be reissued on a temporary basis ahead of new licences coming into force on 1 August 2020. Defra intends to publish the new licences in early July to give users some advance notice of how they are changing. The current licences (GL26, GL28, GL31, GL34, GL35 and GL36) will be reissued to cover the period from 1 March to 31 July. Campaign group Wild Justice has previously said that if Defra took this course of action it would consider fresh legal action.

The shooting community has been reassured by Defra that there will be no knee-jerk reactions due to the ongoing review into the way the release of gamebirds on protected sites is managed. Defra Minister Rebecca Pow said “it is not in Defra's view reasonable nor realistic to expect measures to be implemented before summer/autumn 2020”. Caroline Bedell, BASC's executive director of conservation, said the news was “reassuring” and that “it is vital Defra ensures that all the evidence is considered when identifying a suitable way forward”. Defra has since confirmed that the review will look at areas including the number of gamebirds released and their impact on protected sites, the existing consenting process, and whether further safeguards could be provided to protect sites.

A new super fertiliser from sewage treatment?
A new wastewater treatment process could produce a “super fertiliser”. Severn Trent is collaborating with CCm Technologies to develop a process which uses captured carbon dioxide to stabilise chemicals in waste streams and turns them into plant nutrients. In addition to reducing greenhouse gas emissions from water treatment sites, the technique also generates carbon-free heat for use on site. The Carbon Trust has awarded CCm Technologies £1 million to develop the new process.

Domestic heating – Solid fuel ban
The Government is planning restrictions which may require foresters to change how they process and sell firewood. Burning wet wood produces more smoke and particulate matter than seasoned timber so the aim is to restrict its availability. From February 2021 firewood sold in volumes under 2m³ must be dry (less than 20% moisture) and certificated under a mandatory scheme. Wet wood could still be supplied in larger quantities but must be accompanied by advice on how to dry it ready for burning. Small foresters supplying less than 600m³ a year will be given until February 2022 to comply. There will also be a ban on the sale of pre-packaged traditional bituminous house coal from February 2021, and loose sales direct to customers via coal merchants from February 2023. The decision should not increase heating costs as it has been calculated that manufactured solid fuels are in fact cheaper to burn on an energy density basis.

PROPERTY & DEVELOPMENT

Connecting the countryside
How could 5G technology improve life and work in the countryside? To investigate, seven rural projects are sharing £30 million from the Rural Connected Communities competition. A test site in Sherwood Forest will see robotic environmental management tested alongside live monitoring of the health of the forest. Whilst in Dorset the test site will explore how connectivity can be delivered cost effectively to remote farms and how it can be used to track crop growth, monitor livestock and reduce water pollution.

Shared Rural Network under threat
Implementation of the Shared Rural Network could be derailed by a disagreement between mobile network operators. The network operators are set to invest £530 million to share their infrastructure and pay each other a fee for access. The Government would then provide up to £500 million to build additional masts to eliminate “total not spots” where there is no coverage at all. However it is believed BT (owner of EE) wants to include masts yet to be built in the agreement and charge more than the commercial rate for access. EE is the largest network in terms of coverage so BT believes it should be rewarded for its past infrastructure investment. Despite the disagreement, all four operators still support the programme, especially since the Government has promised to abolish planned coverage obligations in upcoming spectrum auctions. But the Government’s objective to secure a deal before the Budget may be under threat. The networks are already collaborating successfully in Scotland where the first of 24 masts in the Government and EU funded Scottish 4G Infill Programme has come online.

BUSINESS & ECONOMY

CLA proposes tax simplification
Simplifying the tax system for farming businesses could unleash the potential of the rural economy according to the CLA. It advocates the creation of one set of rules that would apply to all business activities undertaken by farmers as a single economic unit; the Rural Business Unit. This would permit greater freedom of investment for rural businesses, encouraging diversification and result in productivity growth and additional tax revenue for the Exchequer. To qualify, the CLA says businesses would have to meet a number of qualification tests; activities, management, size and income.

Scotland: MSPs say renewable energy has the highest growth potential
A recent poll of 77 MSPs asked them to say which industry sectors have the greatest potential for growth. Renewable energy topped the list being mentioned by 39% of them. Other key sectors were financial services (38%) and two more with strong rural relevance, food and drink (23%) and tourism (21%).

OTHER RURAL NEWS

And finally…
Two billion £20 notes will be composted
The Bank of England plans to compost all the current £20 notes so they can be used as an agricultural fertiliser. The replacement polymer note was released last week and will replace the paper notes over a period of six months. Up until 1990 the Bank of England incinerated old banknotes to heat its City of London HQ.