Agriculture: Carbon Emissions

(asked on 1st February 2021) - View Source

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 extend financial support for carbon negative farming and land use beyond the existing schemes for woodland and peatland; and if he will make a statement.


Answered by
Victoria Prentis Portrait
Victoria Prentis
Attorney General
This question was answered on 4th February 2021

Yes we do. Reaching our Net Zero target is one of this government's top priorities. This will mean changes to the way land is managed to reduce agricultural greenhouse gas emissions. We will support the sector to make these changes through the schemes set out in our Agricultural Transition Plan, which was published in November using the powers in the Agriculture Act 2020.

Specifically, our new environmental land management schemes, the Sustainable Farming Incentive, Local Nature Recovery and Landscape Recovery, will all help support farming and land management to contribute to Net Zero. The Agricultural Transition Plan set out examples of the types of actions that we envisage paying for under the schemes and the timetable for those schemes opening to applicants.

We are also offering new agreements and extensions to existing agreements under the legacy Countryside Stewardship scheme. This scheme continues to help farmers manage their land sustainably and contribute to Net Zero whilst we test and roll out our future environmental land management schemes.

Reticulating Splines