Asked by: Rebecca Smith (Conservative - South West Devon)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if he will meet (a) hon. and Rt hon. Members with constituencies in Devon and (b) key stakeholders to discuss steps to (i) conserve Dartmoor moorland and (ii) protect Dartmoor ponies.
Answered by Daniel Zeichner - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
I will meet with hon. and Rt hon. Members representing constituencies in Devon, and key stakeholders, to discuss these issues.
Asked by: Rebecca Smith (Conservative - South West Devon)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if his Department will carry out full impact assessments of the (a) social and (b) economic impact of Environmental Land Management Schemes on upland farms.
Answered by Daniel Zeichner - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Uplands farmers will have a key role to play in the future for delivering sustainable food production and our environmental targets. We are committed to Environmental Land Management (ELM) schemes and will work with the sector to optimise the schemes, ensuring they produce the right outcomes for all farmers including upland farms, while delivering food security and nature recovery in a just and equitable way.
We plan to increase the transparency of schemes by publishing data on the impact they are having, including on upland farms. We will confirm next steps in the rollout of other ELM schemes, including how we will publish this data, in due course.
Asked by: Rebecca Smith (Conservative - South West Devon)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps he is taking to help ensure that people farming on commons can benefit from (a) the Sustainable Farming Incentive and (b) Countryside Stewardship.
Answered by Daniel Zeichner - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
We want people farming on commons land to benefit from both the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) and Countryside Stewardship and are working to make applications to the SFI service available to commoners and other shared graziers. We have asked farmers on commons interested in applying to SFI to contact the Rural Payments Agency so that we can help farmers to prepare to apply and be ready when the application service is available. We will set out more details of the Countryside Stewardship Higher Tier offer in due course. To help with a group’s costs of administering a common land SFI agreement, an annual additional payment of £7 per hectare of eligible common land is available.
Asked by: Rebecca Smith (Conservative - South West Devon)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether he plans to enable agri-environment agreement applications before the current agreements expire.
Answered by Daniel Zeichner - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Farmers with existing agri-agreements can apply to enter the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) if the activities under each scheme are compatible and they will not be paid twice for a similar activity on the same area of land at the same time. We are fully committed to making the Environmental Land Management schemes work for all farmers. We will confirm plans for further rollout of the schemes as soon as possible.
Asked by: Rebecca Smith (Conservative - South West Devon)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether his Department is taking steps to coordinate efforts with local groups to protect Dartmoor ponies.
Answered by Mary Creagh - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The new Moorland Offer, as outlined on the Government website, includes 10 new actions to be included in Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) and two new and one amended action to be included in Countryside Stewardship Higher Tier (CSHT). The new offer will provide payment for grazing with both cattle and ponies and will make both cattle and ponies eligible under the native breeds at risk supplement. The competition between the two has been removed as recommended in the Dartmoor review. In the new offer, ponies are exempt from stock removal requirements, in recognition that removal of ponies from moorland is neither feasible nor desirable in most circumstances.
Full details of the expanded and improved SFI offer available to farmers were published by the government on Tuesday 21 May 2024. Expressions of interest have now opened for those wishing to apply through the Sustainable Farming Incentive controlled roll out. The application window for Countryside Stewardship Higher Tier (CSHT) will be confirmed shortly. Farmers and other eligible land managers can apply for an SFI agreement to run alongside their existing agreement, if:
They will not be paid twice for a similar activity or outcome on the same area of land at the same time (known as ‘double funding’). It should be noted that those managing land designated as SSSI will need to obtain Natural England consent for their grazing management actions; this is part of Natural England statutory duty regarding the protection of SSSIs. Those managing land not designated as a SSSI will not need to discuss their grazing management with Natural England to enter into a Sustainable Farming Incentive agreement.
The new moorland offer will be subject to monitoring and evaluation, particularly in the first year. Any change in the pony population during this time will be investigated and further mitigations will be explored if necessary.
Asked by: Rebecca Smith (Conservative - South West Devon)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps his Department is taking to implement the recommendations of the report of the Independent review of protected site management on Dartmoor led by David Fursdon.
Answered by Mary Creagh - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
In April, the previous Government published the response to the independent review of protected site management on Dartmoor.
Central to that was agreeing to the recommendation of creating a land use management group for Dartmoor, to reinforce Dartmoor’s existing governance - providing a place for cooperation and collaboration between key stakeholders and our arm’s length bodies.
Following the general election, we are now in the process of appointing the independent chair of the group – with applications for the role closing on 3 September and interviews taking place shortly.
The new group will play a key role in delivering a Land Use Framework and land-use plan for Dartmoor, as well as the other recommendations attributed to the group in the government response.
Further information can be found on GOV.UK here.