We are pleased to hear that DEFRA Ministers have outlined plans to ‘move money uphill’ under the reformed Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). These plans are contained in a status report showing how the reforms will affect direct payments in England from 2015.
This is good news for commons as most common land by area is associated with the uplands of northern and western England, and 37% of land above the moorland line is common.
The Foundation for Common Land has been working behind the scenes with other farming organisations to persuade Defra and Natural England that commoners need support from Pillar 1 & 2 so that they can maintain viable farm businesses and continue grazing livestock on unenclosed commons. These pastoral farming systems are critical to delivering access, recreation, clean water, biodiversity and carbon storage amongst others.
We administer a working group looking at the how the Single Payment System (SPS) is working on commons. The group includes representatives from Defra, Natural England, the National Farmers’ Union, Country Land and Business Association and Moorland Association, the Federation of Cumbria Commoners and the Yorkshire Federation of Commoners and Moorland Graziers amongst others. Due to the way SPS is calculated on commons nearly 20% of common land does not receive SPS – known as “naked hectares”. We have been working to ensure that there will be no “naked hectares” in the new round of the CAP. We have considered alternative payment models to the present arrangements but will not be able to decide on how payments should be made until the legal rules for direct payments on common land are set out in delegated acts made by the European Commission.
Similarly we are administering a working group to commons-proof the New Environmental Land Management Schemes (NELMS) currently being devised by Natural England.
