Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what support her Department provides to farmers in Bolton South East constituency.

We recognise that global factors outside the Government’s control are increasing farmer’s input costs, particularly fertiliser, feed, fuel and energy, and that increased input costs can be challenging to cashflow.

To support farmers in England, the Government decided that the 2022 Basic Payment Scheme payment will be made in two instalments each year for the remainder of the agricultural transition period, to help farmers with their cashflow. We are also increasing revenue payment rates for the Countryside Stewardship scheme by ca. 30% to reflect the change in costs since 2013.

To further help with high input costs, Government has removed the 25% tariff on maize imports from the USA to help with animal feed costs. We have also introduced measures to help with the impact of global impacts on fertiliser supply chains. These include a fertiliser industry roundtable, delayed changes to the use of urea fertiliser, encouraging use of organic fertiliser and new technologies.

We have supported farmers through the worst global outbreak of Avian Flu in many years through an improved the Avian Flu compensation scheme for farmers and eased marketing rules to give certainty over business planning.

Government announced 45,000 visas for seasonal workers for the horticulture sector to ensure they have the labour they need, up 15,000 from start of 2022.

Other support includes changes to guidance on farmers using manures, increased grants for farmers and growers, boosting research and development, and supporting farmers to build the health and fertility of their soil through the Sustainable Farming Incentive.

We have committed to spend around £600 million on grants and other support for farmers to invest in productivity, animal health and welfare, innovation over three years and paid out over £30 million so far in grants for technology and equipment, having increased the original budget from £17 million and committed £90 million to our Innovation Programme.