Policy paper

Lowland Agricultural Peat Task Force Chair’s report: government response

Published 29 June 2023

This was published under the 2022 to 2024 Sunak Conservative government

Applies to England

Foreword

Peat is one of our most important natural assets. Healthy peatlands store carbon, help to control flooding, reduce the risk of wildfire and drought, act as a natural water filter and provide habitat for rare and unusual plants, birds and insects. However, England’s lowland peat soils are among the largest sources of greenhouse gas emissions in the land-use sector, accounting for 3% of England’s overall greenhouse gas emissions and 88% of all emissions from peat in England.

The government is committed to addressing peat degradation in lowland agricultural landscapes and to reducing the significant carbon that is emitted as a result. Our ambition is to work with farmers, land managers, water managers and other key stakeholders to control water levels beneath peatland soils (this is known as rewetting) in a way that delivers these joint commitments.

That is why we commissioned the independent Lowland Agricultural Peat Task Force, chaired by Robert Caudwell. The task force considered how government might best meet its commitments to delivering net zero, maintaining food security, and reversing nature’s decline in this historic landscape.

I thank Robert Caudwell for his expert chairing of the Lowland Agricultural Peat Task Force, the national and regional members of the task force and the paludiculture sub-group for their work on this very important topic.

The Chair of the task force has made 14 recommendations to government and the wider sector to ensure that lowland peat soils can be managed more sustainably, providing ongoing economic prosperity for those whose livelihoods are tied to the land, and to deliver wider benefits for the environment and the climate.

The government welcomes the Lowland Agricultural Peat Task Force Chair’s report and his recommendations and understands the vital role that lowland peat soils play in producing food for our nation and supporting our rural economies. We intend to take forward action on all the recommendations, including, where relevant, investing in research and undertaking further policy analysis to consider appropriate next steps.

We are today announcing two new Water for Peat pilot schemes. The £5.45 million Lowland Agricultural Peat Small Infrastructure Pilot and the £2.2 million Lowland Agricultural Peat Water Discovery Pilot. We are also announcing the winners of grants totalling £5 million under the Paludiculture Exploration Fund. In addition, Defra is planning to support a research and development programme over the next two years with the Environment Agency.

The Rt Hon Thérèse Coffey
Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

The background

Peat is a type of soil that is created in wetland landscapes, where dead plants are unable to rot down. The carbon in these plants is then stored as carbon-rich soil. It takes between centuries and millennia for peat soils to build to any significant depth.

Since the 1600s, our peatlands have been drained of water to create drier soils suitable for agricultural use and food production. In England, only 13% of our peatlands remain in a near-natural state and, in low-lying peatlands (the lowlands), this figure drops to less than 1%.

When peatlands degrade in this way, soil is lost, the land subsides, and the carbon once stored in the soil is lost to the atmosphere, primarily as carbon dioxide. These carbon-rich, lowland peat soils provide some of our most productive farmland, so this process is ultimately bad for both farmers and for the climate. Without change, we will continue to lose valuable agricultural soils, leading to loss of agricultural land and greater challenges to food security. In parts of the lowlands, it is estimated that there is only enough soil left to continue farming as we do now for another 30 years.

In January 2021, Defra established the independent Lowland Agricultural Peat Task Force. Chaired by Robert Caudwell, farmer and Chairman of the Association of Drainage Authorities, the group was tasked with exploring how England’s farmed lowland peatlands can be better managed to preserve the carbon stored in them. The work of the task force will contribute to the government’s net zero by 2050 target, and ensure that profitable agriculture can continue for decades to come, recognising how these fertile soils play a vital role in producing food for our nation.

The independent task force brought together farmers, water-management stakeholders, conservationists, academics, government and its agencies for the first time to co-ordinate work already underway, to encourage sustainable farming of lowland peatlands and to recommend new solutions. The work culminated in a report, published today, delivering recommendations for a new, more sustainable future for agriculture on lowland peatlands in England.

Government commitment to lowland agricultural peat

In 2021, we published our world-leading England Peat Action Plan, setting out our ambition to shape a new future for our peatlands. This change will not be a sudden one – improving our lowland peatlands is a long-term undertaking. The transition will be planned and evidence-based, with an important role for public investment and private finance. To date, we have invested around £7.4 million in lowland peat restoration through the Nature for Climate Fund Restoration and Discovery grants, with projects already underway to restore up to 12,400 hectares across the country.

The Lowland Agricultural Peat Task Force was asked to explore how lowland agricultural peatlands can be better managed to safeguard productive agriculture as well as contributing to the government’s net zero by 2050 target. This also supports our targets to halt nature’s decline by 2030, to restore 280,000 hectares of peatland by 2050 and to see 60% of England’s agricultural soils managed sustainably by 2030.

Further, we set out a clear commitment in the Government Food Strategy to work to maintain the current level of food we produce domestically. Preserving our peat soils is an important part of that commitment. As the report acknowledges, climate change is a significant threat to our long-term food security.

Implementation of the Chair’s recommendations will require collaboration across Defra, across government and across industry, as was reflected in the membership of the task force itself.

We believe in taking a mosaic approach, restoring peat where possible and developing more sustainable management regimes in parallel, whether through traditional farming or wetter farming where appropriate, both to preserve peat soil carbon and to support continued agriculture.

In the Environmental Improvement Plan, we recognised that reducing greenhouse gas emissions from peat by rewetting our agricultural peat soils is essential to meeting our legally binding net zero targets. We also stated our commitment to working in collaboration with farmers and other land managers to halt the degradation of our lowland peat soils.

We promised to develop farming-scheme offers to support both the restoration of lowland peat and also wetter farming methods, to publish the new England Peat Map and to continue to implement the England Peat Action Plan, ensuring it prioritises emissions savings.

We agree with the report’s overarching conclusion that if we are to preserve lowland peat, then we must implement changes centred on water. In the government’s Plan for Water, published in April 2023, we set out the need for rewetting peat. Existing evidence tells us that some alternative approaches to rewetting deliver only minimal carbon savings and others have been shown not to work at all.

Rewetting – safely and sustainably raising and managing water levels beneath peatland soils – is our best option to return peat to a healthy condition. It will therefore also help to solve our water supply and drought-risk issues, provide a water cleansing function and mitigate flooding – challenges that are pertinent for agriculturally productive fens in particular. However, we need more information on how best to go about rewetting, and in which areas of lowland peat it is possible and deliverable.

The recommendations

Water for peat and more water level management control

Recommendation 1: A place for peat in planning more strategically about water

We agree with recommendation 1 that peat preservation will require us to take a more integrated approach to water level management. We are pleased to see that England’s five regional water resource groups are starting to factor peat into their emerging regional plans (recommendation 1.1). We note the recommendation for new-look Water Level Management Plans, expanded to apply to all significant expanses of lowland peat, docked into Local Nature Recovery Strategies (recommendation 1.2).

We will consider how to achieve this as we deliver the commitment in the Plan for Water to improve how we manage our water system, taking a systematic, local, catchment-based approach, in a coordinated and collaborative way, to make sure it is fit to deliver for water supply and the environment.

Recommendation 2: New investment in water storage, management and control

We agree with recommendation 2 that investing in water storage, retention and release will be key to making water available for peat preservation. To prevent new water storage from eating into the banks of high value land, we agree that these should be constructed separate from the river channel (where possible) and across non-peaty areas of the lowlands (recommendation 2.1). This will form part of the Plan for Water commitments to speed up the delivery of water-resources infrastructure and to support farmers to store more water on their land.

We have also launched a second round of the £10 million Water Management Grant, which is funding more reservoirs and better irrigation equipment, which will in turn help build water resilience and so support the growing of crops during dryer periods.

We agree that we should invest in advancing our water level management technologies to help us retain and recycle more water within the landscape (recommendation 2.2) and in improving our telemetry and water level management controls (recommendation 2.3).

Today, we are pleased to announce that we will soon be launching two new Water for Peat pilot schemes to kickstart changes in the way we manage water for peat:

• The £5.45 million Lowland Agricultural Peat Small Infrastructure Pilot will support the installation of infrastructure and monitoring technology, which will enable more control of water levels for the preservation and rewetting of lowland peat.
• The £2.2 million Lowland Agricultural Peat Water Discovery Pilot will help us to improve our understanding of the lowland peat water challenge and transform the way we use water in these landscapes.

It will provide an opportunity for different stakeholders in a local area to work together to promote a change in water management in support of sustainable farming. It will enable these groups to develop clear, costed plans for this change, so that government can better shape the next steps.

We agree that we must continue to invest in new water infrastructure (recommendation 2.4) and will take this forward as we develop our new farming schemes and invest in new pilot schemes through the Nature for Climate Fund.

Recommendation 3: Legal protection and powers for managing water for carbon

We agree with recommendation 3 that authorities responsible for water management must have the legal protection and powers to manage water differently to play their part in peat preservation. We will undertake an assessment of the legal implications of asking responsible authorities to raise water levels in the interests of preserving peat soil carbon as we implement the Plan for Water action to streamline our water policy and legal framework. This will inform relevant new powers and any required legislation.

Enabling more sustainable ways of farming on peat soils

Recommendation 4: Public money for wetter modes of farming on peat soils

We agree with recommendation 4 that public money should be available to support wetter modes of farming on lowland peat. We are using the Environmental Land Management schemes to incentivise activities which can evidently preserve peat and reduce emissions (recommendation 4.1), including improving the support for raising water levels on grassland and arable land on peat soils to make offers more flexible and deliverable.

Under the Sustainable Farming Incentive, we have already introduced soil monitoring options. Within Countryside Stewardship, we are improving existing offers and continuing to explore what new offers can be made, such as for paludiculture. We are also looking into how Landscape Recovery can best incentivise improved peatland management so that, from 2024, Environmental Land Management will provide a key funding stream for restoration and wetter modes of farming. This will build on the progress made so far through the Nature for Climate Fund.

We agree with recommendation 4.3 that irrigation and mulching should be explored as alternative practices to raising the water table to preserve lowland peat and should they, or other measures, prove successful we would look to facilitate their uptake (recommendation 4.4).

We note the recommendation to expand the definition of peat within Environmental Land Management schemes to include soils with an organic matter content of 12% or more within the top 40cm of the soil, at least within our most significant expanses of lowland peat (recommendation 4.2).

We will be investing in new research on wasted peat soils, as part of the £6.6 million peat research and development programme, which will inform any future updates to the definition of peat used in these schemes. The programme will include work to address many evidence gaps we have concerning lowland agricultural peatlands. We seek to better understand the potential emissions savings and the impact on food security of different management techniques (including irrigation and mulching), the emissions from wasted peat and how to mitigate them, the impact of different water tables on the ability to grow food crops and how current farm machinery can be used under wetter peat conditions.

We note the recommendation (4.5) that government should support the transfer of long-term agri-environment agreements between tenants. We have committed to making it as easy as possible for farmers to apply for our schemes. In some circumstances, it may be simpler for farmers to create new scheme agreements rather than transferring existing ones between different land managers when there is a change in management control of the land.

In the government response to the Rock Review published in May, we committed to work with tenant farmers and landlords through the new Farm Tenancy Forum and co-design process for our farming schemes to look at what works best for them in practice. If they assess that introducing transferable agreements is a feasible and preferred solution, we will reflect that in scheme rules.

Recommendation 5: Viable opportunities in private finance

We agree with recommendation 5 that there should be viable opportunities for private finance to support those farming peatland more responsibly. We are already taking action to derive new emissions factors for different crops and water management systems (recommendation 5.1) as part of the £6.6 million peat research and development programme described above.

We believe that the peatland code is the most promising vehicle for attracting private finance for farming at higher water levels on peat and for paludiculture (recommendations 5.2 and 5.3). Following research funded by Defra, an update of the peatland code was published in March 2023. For the first time, projects raising the water table on lowland fen peatland (without habitat restoration) are eligible to attract private finance through the code.

While paludicultural projects are not currently eligible under the code, the IUCN Peatland Programme (owners of the code) intend to extend the code to paludicultural projects once suitable evidence is available. Projects funded through the Paludiculture Exploration Fund may provide such evidence.

We are continuing to support the code’s expansion, and to explore other opportunities to boost private finance, for example through the Natural Environment Investment Readiness Fund and the Big Nature Impact Fund. As we said in the Green Finance Strategy, we will also aim to publish a nature investment roadmap by 2024 to support the nature-positive transition pathway for key economic sectors.

Recommendation 6: Technical advice on keeping peat soils wetter

We agree with recommendation 6 that some farmers will need access to technical advice on how to keep peat soils wetter in order for them to take up new measures. We note the recommendation (6.1) to encompass ways of keeping peat soils wetter within regenerative farming, and we will work with the sector to encourage this transition. We are actively considering the best way to improve the provision of technical advice and support for farmers on lowland peat soils to encourage take-up of these offers (recommendation 6.2).

We will consider opportunities to support farmers to monitor the state of their peat using low-cost, simple and effective tools (recommendation 6.3). This will complement our soil monitoring options under the Sustainable Farming Incentive that we introduced in 2022.

Supporting people, partnerships and economies

Recommendation 7: Building on bonds already formed

We agree that constructive conversations have already begun and that there is a need to build on the bonds that have been developed (recommendation 7). Following the conclusion of the Nature for Climate Fund (NCF) Discovery Grant programme, the NCF will continue to support partnerships taking forward restoration projects (recommendation 7.1). The newly announced £2.2 million Lowland Agricultural Peat Water Discovery Pilot will also support established and new partnerships to continue the discussions on how to transform the way we use water in lowland peat landscapes.

We welcome the evolution of other groups starting to emerge from the bottom up in response to the localised needs of their area and the request for all of these groups and partnerships to work constructively on next steps arising from this report. We agree with the recommendation that we should continue to seek the advice of these partnerships as we develop new policies (recommendation 7.2) and will therefore be holding a series of workshops with them over the autumn.

We welcome the proposal for a new national forum for lowland farmed peat, hosted independently of the UK government. We look forward to engaging with this forum when it is established.

We recognise that in the north-west, there are local groups exploring how best to level up water management in the area. We note the recommendation (7.3) that government takes a more active position in helping these groups address the issue of a new water management authority in parts of the north-west.

The government believes that flood risk management work and maintenance should be carried out by those best placed to do it locally and supports both the creation of a new water management authority and the recommendation to bring peat preservation more actively into the scope of discussions.

The government has amended the Land Drainage Act 1991 via the Environment Act 2021 to remove a barrier to establishing new internal drainage boards or expanding existing ones and will soon consult on the draft secondary legislation.

Recommendation 8: Ensuring policy and legislation supports regulators

We agree with recommendation 8, that we need to ensure that policy and legislation support the delivery of raising water levels on peat. We note the requirement for a thorough assessment of current policy and legal frameworks relevant to water level management on lowland peat, particularly rules on abstraction.

We will deliver this as we implement commitments in the Plan for Water to improve how water is allocated and managed, including reviewing the allocation of abstraction rights, modernising the abstraction system, and enabling farmers to refill their reservoirs at more times in the year. As we set out in the Water Resources Planning Guideline, our key considerations for allocating water include environmental, socioeconomic and food-security impacts.

Recommendation 9: Raising the profile of lowland agricultural peat soils

We agree that raising the profile of lowland agricultural peat soils is key to their preservation (recommendation 9), including the carbon related impacts and potential of wetter farming (recommendations 9.1 and 9.2).

We welcome the recommendation for environmental groups and farmers to drive a public outreach campaign (recommendations 9.3 and 9.5). We look forward to seeing the proposed campaign and will consider how we can utilise our Catchment Sensitive Farming scheme to amplify the messages. We agree that open days at wetter farming trials are a powerful tool for communication (recommendation 9.4) and would help to share the message that wetter farming can coexist with food production, as well as raising the public profile of both of these important matters. We would encourage all early innovators, such as Paludiculture Exploration Fund grant holders, to host such events.

Recommendation 10: Undertaking a socio-economic assessment of new measures

We agree with recommendation 10 that there needs to be more socio-economic assessment of new wetter farming measures. This will be an important element of supporting farmers to continue producing food while reducing their emissions. The recommended socio-economic study (recommendation 10.1) is broad in scope and will be addressed through a series of related projects as part of a wider research programme. For example, we are funding a social research project which will start later this year and the new water pilots (above) will provide data to assess the level of investment required to safely manage raised water levels.

In the Government Food Strategy, published in 2022, we committed to publishing a land use framework in 2023. This is to ensure we meet our net zero and biodiversity targets, and help our farmers adapt to a changing climate, whilst continuing to produce high quality, affordable produce that supports a healthier diet. Consideration of peat policy is included in that work in response to recommendation 10.2 (to consider land availability to deliver our goals and associated trade-offs).

Driving forward science and innovation

Recommendation 11: Understanding the depth and condition of lowland peat

We agree with recommendation 11 that there is a need to better understand the depth and condition of our lowland peat. The new England Peat Map will provide us with a new baseline condition for our lowland peatland and will be published next year. As part of this work, we will continue to engage with other groups mapping their local peatlands to bring new data into the national map (recommendation 11.1). We have already been supporting these local initiatives through the Nature for Climate Fund Discovery Grant programme (recommendation 11.2).

We agree that we need to improve our understanding of the greenhouse gas emissions from wasted peat (recommendation 11.3). In addition to the ongoing research project on wasted peat which has already led to a reduction in the emission factor for wasted peat cropland, we will fund a further study to better understand the population of wasted peat soils and to determine appropriate mitigation measures.

Recommendation 12: More large-scale field trials and modelling

We agree with recommendation 12 that there needs to be more large-scale field trials and modelling. In addition to the £6.6 million peat research programme set out above, we are developing a further research programme with the Environment Agency, which will take place over the next two years. This programme will look into many questions around rewetting peat, such as water demand, supply and storage; water-management structures; flood-risk management; nature-based solutions for water quality; biodiversity and regulation. Across the two research programmes we will be tackling many of the evidence gaps identified in the report, building on the significant investment from non-government bodies in peat-related research at present.

Recommendation 13: Advancing new technologies

We agree that new technologies may offer solutions (recommendation 13); a wet peat soil has a lower load-bearing capacity, so lower ground pressure machinery will need to be developed and rolled out (recommendation 13.1). The £5.6 million Paludiculture Exploration Fund (more detail below) will provide funding to a project looking to develop such machinery solutions. We will start to explore some of the opportunities arising from a switch to vertical farming (recommendation 13.2) as part of the £6.6 million peat research programme.

Recommendation 14: Adopting the roadmap to commercially viable paludiculture

We have adopted the roadmap to commercially viable paludiculture (recommendation 14). Not all the actions within the roadmap are for us to deliver, but we have already started to make progress across a range of actions within it.

In 2022, during the development of the roadmap, the government launched the £5.6 million Paludiculture Exploration Fund . Natural England have today announced winning bids to the grant scheme . These projects will help to answer questions around growing fibre crops for use in construction, growing water-tolerant food crops, (such as celery, wild rice and blueberry), mechanisation of harvesting on wetter soils and expanding the farming of sphagnum moss. This fund has also seen the creation of a paludiculture community, brought together through national and regional workshops, a dedicated website and an online forum.

Looking ahead, paludiculture offers a significant future farming option for maintaining the profitable use of lowland peat while reducing the greenhouse gas emissions associated with their current use.

The future

Throughout our agricultural transition we have been clear that farming and the environment can and must go hand in hand. We have ambitions to transform the water landscape in lowland peat areas to ensure healthy peat and to support a productive, sustainable future for lowland farmers.

Findings from all of these projects will inform the design of a future, larger-scale programme based around water storage and water management. This will in turn enable farmers to continue to produce food on lowland peatlands and will deliver benefits for drought- and flood-resilience, improvements in water quality and biodiversity and significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, helping us on our way to achieving our net zero commitments.

Net zero is a cross-societal endeavour. We expect to see developments come from the paludiculture forum, from retail and from the water industry and look forward to working with all those interested in the future of lowland agricultural peat.

We will build on the work of the Lowland Agricultural Peat Task Force by continuing close discussions with key stakeholders, contributing to the expanding body of knowledge around lowland peat and supporting collaboration in lowland peat communities. The work of the task force along with the Chair’s recommendations have started an important and ongoing conversation around the future of our lowland peatlands.