Defra’s CAP reform consultation is out and will seek views on a wide range of policy areas. The document is available on-line.
While the CAP consultation is noticeable by its absence of information on common land, one of the clear priorities underpinning the consultation is the desire to move money uphill where 80% of England's common land is found. There are two proposals for the new basic payment scheme using Pillar 1 monies. One is to effectively retain the status quo. Farmers in lowland areas have received higher payments under the current SPS scheme because the money was allocated in a similar way to preceding subsidy schemes.The other proposal would see the lowland and Severely Disadvantage Area (SDA) payments converge and an uplift to the moorland payment. If the SDA rates were raised to the same level as the lowland rate - and the same cash increase applied to moorland payments - then rates could be closer to €236/ha (£210/ha) for lowland and SDA farmers and €62/ha(£53/ha) for moorland producers.
The Foundation for Common Land has been working hard to "commons proof" the new basic payment scheme. We convene the SPS and common land CAP reform working group with senior Defra, Natural England, RPA, NFU officials and other key influencers so that farmers with common land can get a better deal out of this new round of Pillar 1 funding. The group has developed a set of basic principles on how payments should be applied to common land. We are now waiting for the rules for claiming direct payments on common land to be published by the European Commission.
Many hectares of common land are covered by agri-environment agreements. With less money available in the new Rural Development Programme, England’s current agri-environment regime will be dismantled under the new CAP, although existing Environmental Stewardship agreements will be allowed to run their course.
From 2016, a new environmental land management scheme (NELMS) will be introduced, bringing together a number of existing schemes into one scheme. There will be two types of agreement. One will be ‘site specific’ focused on the most important designated sites such as Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSIs) or ‘scheduled monuments’. Defra said it would be ‘broadly similar to the current Higher Level Stewardship (HLS) offer’ with entry mostly via invitation.
The second strand would be area based agreements focusing on measures specific to the environmental needs of the local area. The selection criteria would also promote clusters or groups of coordinated agreements across local areas.
Like basic payments, we are working hard to "commons proof" NELMS design. We convene the NELMS on commons working group made up of senior Defra, Natural England, RPA, NFU officials and other key influencers. We are working through the technical details of NELMS to see if it works on common land, rather than retro-fit common land to the scheme as happened in the last round of agri-environment schemes.
