Defra have a suite of work underway contributing to the initial evaluation of Uplands Entry Level stewardship (UELS). This consists of a. uptake/ outputs, b. farmer attitudes survey, c. environmental baseline, and d. economic impact. Defra regularly report on uptake of ELS (see previous emails). At this stage there is nothing to report on the environmental baseline or economic impact.
Defra has published a short summary of the findings from the farmer attitude study conducted by CCRI. This was based on telephone survey of 800 UELS agreement and non-agreement holders. The aim was to access the awareness of and attitudes towards UELS among farmers and land managers and identify factors affecting uptake of UELS.
The report picks out the following key findings:
1. Awareness of UELS is very high.
2. Most think that the scheme is easy to join and implement and that NE runs the scheme well.
3. The majority of agreement holder tenants experienced no problems in securing landlord consent to join the scheme. For non-agreement holders a minority of tenants cite landlord consent issues as a reason for not entering the scheme (2%). Non agreement holders were also asked about the ease with which they would be able to obtain landlords consent, should they wish to apply for UELS and 25% perceived problems.
4. Non-agreement holders are more likely to be small holdings / part time / lifestyle farmers with most /all of their income derived from outside farming. Many smallholders feel that the scheme is not for them or are unaware that they are eligible for UELS.
5. On balance the quality of advice provision is thought to be good, although only 20% responded that advice had influenced their option choice.
6. 20% of agreement holders are not directly familiar with their agreement options. This may impact on the achievement of the schemes environmental outcomes and potentially increases the risk of agreement holders breaching their agreements.
7. Most options are chosen for ease of delivery rather than environmental additionality. However 20% of non-commons agreement holders have had to change management practices and workload is affected for 25% of non-commons agreement holders.
8. Most say that they think UELS will be environmentally effective and there is evidence in particular that it both supports continued good agricultural practice and encourages some significant change in management practice – in 20% of agreements. More could be done to improve the scheme’s environmental potential.
9. The survey found that there are particular issues for common rights holders however it must be noted that the sample of commons was small (31 for the telephone survey) and not subject to the same selection criteria as the main sample and so the results for commons simply show a snapshot of the issues and an indication of whether they are widespread or not. Common land agreement holders as compared with the main survey reported a bigger increase in workload, fewer felt payments were sufficient, they felt UELS was less environmentally effective, and harder to join. Also, a proportion of (15%) owners are taking a proportion of the payment while not contributing to delivery costs and inactive graziers feel they are losing out. There does not appear to be a widespread problem of commons having trouble gaining landowner consent.
The full suite of evaluation activity must recognise that the introduction of UELS in 2010 fundamentally changed the way in which upland farmers in England were supported, replacing the area based Hill Farm Allowance (HFA). For the NFU a key question is how well the new arrangements (i.e. Uplands ELS and the UTP) have managed to fill the income gap for upland farm businesses formerly in receipt of the HFA payment. This attitude research does not make the link between previous HFA claimants and UELS, so, whilst most non agreement holders are more likely to be small holders (point 4) it is not clear whether they previously claimed HFA.
- frank chislett - 12/01/2012
The fact that the survey indicates that most non-agreement tenants are small-holders is not always the case. Farmers attempting to elevate themselves from small-holder status by accessing possible redundant local land were previously eligible for HFA support without discourse to the landlord. In this way a more viable business plan could be adopted enabling farmers to become full-time. The present state of affairs totally negates that possibility by allowing non-farming landlords to subsidy grab for their own ends and thus hamstringing any future attempt by small farmers to adopt this approach into full-time farming.