As of the 26th of January 2023, the Department for Environment Food & Rural Affairs (DEFRA) has announced some updated information to the Environmental Land Management Scheme (also known as ELMs).
DEFRA are expanding their schemes to pay farmers and land managers to provide environmental goods and services alongside food production; and providing one-off grants to support farm productivity, innovation, research and development in a way that also helps achieve these goals.
These reforms are essential to help grow and maintain a resilient, productive agricultural sector and achieve ambitious targets for the environment and climate. A number of changes have been implemented in this scheme update to help engage farmers and land-owners.
- Catchment Sensitive Farming
- Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI)
- Countryside Stewardship (CS)
- Landscape Recover
The schemes will collectively pay farmers and land managers to deliver, alongside food production, significant and important outcomes for the climate and environment that can only be delivered by farmers and other land managers in the wider countryside. These include:
- Creating and restoring a broad range of wildlife-rich habitat, as well as continuing to protect habitat already managed under our existing agri-environment schemes
- Improving water quality, by reducing nitrogen, phosphorus and sediment pollution from agricultural activities, building on our existing Catchment Sensitive Farming approach
- Increasing resilience to flooding and drought through nature-based solutions such as natural flood management
- Creating more new woodlands and treescapes to increase tree and woodland cover, and encouraging management of existing woodlands, including to increase their resilience to pests and diseases
- Reducing carbon emissions, storing carbon and increasing resilience to climate change, for example through management of soils, water, peatland and trees
