Farmers: Surveys

(asked on 21st February 2023) - View Source

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

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of declining levels of confidence among farmers in England, as reported by the October 2022 release of the Farmer Opinion Tracker for England; and what steps they are taking to address this falling confidence.


Answered by
Lord Benyon Portrait
Lord Benyon
Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
This question was answered on 6th March 2023

Listening to farmers is a crucial part of how we shape our future farming policy. The Farmer Opinion Tracker provides a snapshot of views and opinion provided over a five week period between 28th October and 5th December 2022. As a sample based survey, responses can vary due to changes in sample as well as due to real changes on the ground. Broadly speaking, confidence measures in the most recent survey have remained similar to the previous survey results. While there were some declines in some measures, the changes observed were not typically statistically significant – this means that the changes were consistent with usual statistical variation.

Since the last survey was undertaken, we have provided more certainty to allow farmers to plan ahead by reiterating our commitment to the transition and pressing ahead with rolling out our Environmental Land Management schemes, fine-tuning them to make sure they help to deliver our ambitious outcomes on the environment and support a thriving farming sector. The Sustainable Farming Incentive is now live with thousands of farmers applying and we announced six new standards available this year, which will allow more farmers to take advantage of the scheme. Alongside that, Countryside Stewardship continues to offer payment for environmental actions, and will be enhanced to deliver our high environmental ambition, and we are getting ready to open up the second phase of Landscape Recovery scheme. In parallel, we have launched a number of grants for one-off funding to support productivity, such as money for new equipment and technology, slurry storage and water management.

We think this information gives farmers the certainty they need to plan effectively for the years ahead and urge all farmers to look at our schemes and grants and to decide what works for their farm business.

Reticulating Splines