No farm should have more than a quarter of BPS cut before ELMS is ready, says CLA

The document warned continuing with ‘progressive’ cuts after year one would result in large farming businesses losing more than 50 per cent of their direct payments before they were even able to enter the new ELM scheme in late 2024.

Susan Twining, chief land use policy adviser at the CLA, said: “Because of the way the Common Agricultural Policy works, that might sound attractive to some people, but a lot of these businesses are as reliant on the payments as others.

“The scale does not make them any wealthier. There are some economies of scale, but they are as challenged as any average sized business, so it does not make sense for their payments to be cut more deeply because it will damage them to a point where they may not be viable.

“You can get very large tenanted businesses which will be equally damaged by this. Shallower cuts in the first few years will ensure they are more manageable.”

Spending

The document also recommends future spending on agriculture and the environment should be properly considered and not ‘limited’ by the current CAP budget.

And it calls on Ministers to introduce a large-scale Business Adaptation Programme to facilitate business change.

The CLA has previously said the Government should spend £200m a year throughout the seven-year agricultural transition to help farmers manage the move away from direct payments, and suggested the amount of money available could be boosted to £500m a year with match funding from industry.