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Farming Today: 21/02/22 Future of Farming, ELMs payments, and Scotland's forests

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21/02/22 Future of Farming, ELMs payments, and Scotland's forests

BBC Radio 4 - Farming Today, 21/02/22 Future of Farming, ELMs payments, and Scotland's forests

All this week on Farming Today we’re talking about what the future of farming looks like.

This week on Farming Today we're looking at the future of farming. The changes to subsides, the cost of producing food rising and new demands on farming from consumers concerned about climate change. We speak to Professor of Rural Policy at Gloucestershire University, Janet Dwyer, about these changes and what the future of farming looks like across the UK. 

Under the old EU Common Agricultural Payment system, farmers received direct payments based on the amount of land they had, but to qualify they had to do their bit for the environment. They were also able to opt in to stewardship agreements which would pay them more to do more. Now, under the new public money for public goods approach currently being introduced in England, farms can join Environmental Land Management Schemes and be paid to improve soil or plant hedges. Or, as farmer James Peck tells us, they might choose not to join.

Tree planting is very much part of government plans for improving the environment, combatting climate change and making space for nature. In Moray, a publicly owned garden nursery which grows trees for Scotland's forests is set to double in size; Forestry and Land Scotland's Newton Nursery near Elgin already grows around seven million trees a year but climate change means demand for saplings is growing.

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21/02/22 Future of Farming, ELMs payments, and Scotland's forests

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