Starmer vows to champion farming, but uncertainty remains over UK agriculture plans

The UK’s new centre-left government has pledged to champion British farming and prioritise food security, but questions linger over Labour’s plans for the country’s post-Brexit farming policies.

The party led by Keir Starmer has achieved historic victories in several rural Conservative strongholds, including North Somerset, South West Norfolk and Suffolk Coastal in the UK’s general election on 4 July.

However, Labour’s manifesto did not mention a budget for farming, while the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats promised an additional £1 billion (nearly €1.2 billion) for the agricultural sector.

Nick von Westenholz, the National Farmers Union’s (NFU) director for strategy, told Euractiv that setting a long-term budget for the Environmental Land Management (ELM) scheme is crucial.

The ELM will replace the EU’s multimillion farming subsidy program, the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).

“Unlike in the EU under the CAP, where you have a seven-year multi-annual financial commitment, we don’t have any spending commitment to finance those schemes,” said von Westenholz.

“We are obviously expecting to have to be some kind of budget provision, so the government needs to quickly set out exactly what the budget will be for those schemes,” he added.

The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) area-based payments will be entirely phased out by 2027 and replaced by four farming policies implemented by England, Scotland, Northern Ireland, and Wales.

Scotland’s new policy remains aligned with the EU’s per-hectare subsidies and complementary funding for sustainable practices, while England and Wales have moved to systems rewarding environment-friendly farming.

Green plans

The English farming sector—the UK’s largest—has faced uncertainty since Brexit. Successive Conservative governments frequently altered the ELM until 2023.

Under the latest version, English farmers can choose from over one hundred actions to receive subsidies, such as reducing pesticide use, planting pollinator-friendly flowers, and optimising fertiliser use to protect groundwater from pollution.

Von Westenholz notes that while Labour is unlikely to make radical changes to existing schemes, making them financially attractive for farmers is a crucial issue.

“There is a concern about the budget not being sufficient and that there won’t be enough of a business case for farmers to adopt the scheme,” he stressed.

The lack of clarity also led to a slow uptake of new schemes by English farmers during their first years of roll-out. However, the trend has improved recently.

Ben Reynolds, the executive director of the Institute for European Environmental Policy (IEEP) UK, a sustainability think tank, told Euractiv that farmers are increasingly demanding more ambitious schemes, indicating a need for additional funding.

Reynolds echoed the NFU’s concerns over inadequate budget, noting that cutting existing funds would hinder nature conservation targets. At the moment, the UK is committed to protect 30% of land and sea biodiversity by 2030, promised at the 2022 United Nations Biodiversity Conference in Montreal.

“So many of the UK’s problems in terms of nature can only be tackled by good farming,” said Reynolds, advocating a “carrot” approach to encourage farmers.

Backlash from Welsh farmers

In Wales, the proposed Sustainable Farming Scheme (SFS) to replace EU CAP support faced backlash, sparking countrywide farmer protests in early 2024.

The Welsh plan required farmers to implement a group of environmental actions to obtain the subsidies, including highly controverisal measures among the sector such as planting trees on 10% of the farm and dedicating 10% to the restoration of wildlife habitats.

The conservation charity Welsh Woodland Trust described the requirement as “modest” since the average tree cover on farms in Wales is already 6 to 7%.

“I think part of the problem with the Welsh scheme is the way it’s been communicated, or perhaps manipulated, by certain interests,” said Reynolds.

He also noted that Welsh farmers, more reliant on the old CAP per-hectare subsidies, found the new proposal financially unsustainable.

In response to protests, the Welsh government postponed the SFS implementation to 2026, a decision applauded by the NFU.

Commenting on Brexit’s overall impact on farming and the environment, Reynolds described it as a “mixed picture.”

“Broadly speaking, I would say one of the positives of Brexit, from the point of view of environmental agenda, has been trying out new farming schemes, particularly in England,” said Reynolds.

“How many of those changes could have we have done within the EU? Maybe we didn’t need to leave to able to do them?” he added

[Edited by Angelo Di Mambro and Rajnish Singh]

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