WIREDGOV

Defra announce first results from monitoring the impact of 0% set aside rate

DEPARTMENT FOR ENVIRONMENT, FOOD AND RURAL AFFAIRS News Release (23/08) issued by The Government News Network on 30 January 2008

The amount of farm land left uncropped is likely to fall by more than 50 per cent in 2008, new results published today suggest.

The results from Defra's Farm Business Survey (FBS) , are in line with the departments earlier analysis of the likely impact of the decision by the EU to set the set aside rate to 0 per cent this year.

Within the overall change, the non-rotational area - land left out of production for more than a single year - is expected to fall by 35 per cent, while the rotational area - land left out of production for one year only - is expected to fall by 85 per cent, reflecting the ease of bringing this land into cultivation. The area in margins and corners of fields is expected to fall by 13 per cent overall, with greater reductions on farms not in Environmental Stewardship.

These results are the first major piece of evidence on farmers' planting decisions and intentions for 2008 and beyond and comes from an extension to the long-running survey.

The results also indicate that around 70 per cent of farms which still retain some 'set-aside' do not plan to make further reductions in 2009; 19 per cent do plan to make further reductions and the remaining 11 per cent are uncertain.

The results follow the announcement by Environment Secretary Hilary Benn on 26 September 2007 that a programme of environmental monitoring of farmland would be set up under Defra's Agricultural Change and Environment Observatory (ACEO) in the wake of the EU Agriculture Council's decision to set a 0 per cent rate of set-aside for the 2008 harvest year.

Environment Secretary, Hilary Benn said:

"This first piece of evidence from the Defra's Agriculture Change and Environment Observatory (ACEO) will help in assessing the scale and nature of the likely environmental impacts of the move away from set aside in England.

"I look forward to further evidence coming from the programme to provide a firm basis for informing any future action".

The monitoring has been set up to assess what has happened on the ground following the new set aside target and to provide a firmer basis for any future action. FBS monitoring also included information on farmers' decisions and intentions about land formerly set aside and otherwise out of agricultural production.

Notes to Editors

1. As a result of the EU Agriculture and Fisheries Council decision, farmers with set-aside 'entitlements' will not be required to take land out of production in order to receive a payment under the 2008 Single Payment Scheme.

2. Set-aside was first introduced in 1988 as a means of dealing with over-production and controlling the supply of cereals by requiring farmers to leave a proportion of their land out of production.

3. A monitoring exercise is being conducted through Defra's Agricultural Change and Environment Observatory (ACEO) which has an existing programme of work examining the impact of CAP reform. This exercise will tell us more about farmers' planting decisions in autumn 2007 and their plans for spring 2008. The Farm Business Survey (FBS) analysis represents the first major piece of evidence from this monitoring exercise.

4. The FBS survey work was conducted between mid November and mid December 2007. Just over 450 of the 1,800 FBS participants in England took part in the survey, using a stratified random survey design, with a higher sampling rate amongst farms most likely to have set-aside. Analysis of the results was carried out by Observatory statisticians. The full report can be found at http://statistics.defra.gov.uk/esg/ace/index.htm.

5. Other surveys that will be used to inform this monitoring process include the December Survey of Agriculture and the Farm Practices Survey. We will also be considering evidence, both quantitative and qualitative, provided from within Defra, by Natural England and the Environment Agency, who are full participants in the Observatory, and contribute to it financially, and by external environmental and conservation stakeholders including the RSPB. A detailed field and interview survey has also been commissioned to establish how uncropped land is managed and how this influences its ecological value.

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