Consultation outcome

Analysis of responses summary

Updated 10 February 2021

Farming is changing. 2021 marks the start of our 7-year transition away from EU-based rules and towards a new system in which we pay farmers to improve the environment, improve animal health and welfare, and reduce carbon emissions.

This once-in-a-generation opportunity to reshape the way we farm and look after our land in England, will help ensure farming remains sustainable for everyone, for many years to come. We set out what this means in our recently published agricultural transition plan. A cornerstone of that plan is the Environmental Land Management scheme, which is being designed and tested to ensure farming remains sustainable by bringing a new standard using the very best environmental practices.

To help inform this scheme, in 2020 we consulted the public on how it could work. We received 1,672 responses to our consultation from people and businesses across the country. We are very grateful to everyone who responded, as these have been integral in designing the policy and delivery framework for Environmental Land Management.

There were a number of themes that were identified from the responses. These included:

• widespread support for the design principles and a desire to see greater ambition and more detail about how Environmental Land Management would work in practice
• desire to see flexibility in the way payments were calculated including different payment mechanisms, and a welcoming of blended public and private finance approach
• a clear view that the principal barrier to participating was poor previous experience and concerns over continuing complexity and the bureaucracy seen in the past
• whilst the main driver for participation was financial, responses also showed that participation would be more likely if the process was simple and flexible
• a clear need for advice, particularly during the pre-application and application process, and for the more complex agreements. Impartial and expert advisers with local knowledge were also suggested
• support for monitoring through self-assessment, especially in ways such as using photos and apps for location and date tagging
• overwhelming support for testing and piloting the scheme, especially for payment and rewards systems, outcomes and effectiveness, monitoring and ease of the application process

We have acted on this feedback and will continue to work openly as we shape the policy of our future schemes.

Building on the 69 innovative test and trials underway that involve over 3,000 farmers across England, we will be launching the first phase of our Sustainable Farming Incentive pilot in spring 2021. This pilot will allow us to see how the policies we are co-designing with farmers, will operate in practice. More information on our approach to piloting will be released shortly.

Change of terminology within the scheme

You may notice that the way we refer to things in the report is different from what you might have heard more recently. In response to feedback, and as the thinking for the scheme has developed, we have also made some changes to the words we use when talking about the different parts of the scheme.

This is to ensure that they better reflect the aim and proposals of that part of our Environmental Land Management ambition. We are no longer referring to, or using ‘tiers’ to describe the different parts of the scheme, instead we use ‘components’ and we are using the full name of each of the three components whenever we can.

In summary, the scheme will now comprise of three main components which are shown below:

Component	Previous description
Sustainable farming incentive	Tier 1
Local nature recovery	Tier 2
Landscape recovery	Tier 3

The change of terminology does not mean that the plan for that part of the Environmental Land Management scheme has changed, simply that it has been renamed for clarity. We now also refer to ELM as ‘Environmental Land Management’. The language in this report reflects the previous terminology used.