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The second tranche of the Environmental Farming Scheme (EFS) wider level had more farmer uptake than the first, with 1,639 applications received before last Friday’s deadline.
In March 2017, DAERA received 1,435 applications for the first tranche of the scheme and 1,187 of these farm businesses subsequently proceeded with EFS wider-level agreements. Assuming a similar drop-out rate before agreements are finalised this time round, DAERA can expect close to 2,600 farmers to be signed up to EFS wider-level agreements over the two tranches.
However, it is still short of the 4,200 wider-level agreements that the Department was targeting at the scheme outset.
At an Ulster Farmers’ Union (UFU) meeting in Cookstown last week, questions were raised about the amount of flexibility within EFS wider-level measures and the payment cap put on scheme agreements.
“EFS can be frustrating because some farmers cannot do what they want to do. A riparian buffer zone has to be 2m wide or else 10m wide, but it can’t be 4m or 5m. Scheme agreements shouldn’t be about making it easy to tick a box on a computer,” said Réamaí Mathers from Green Pine Consultants.
Payment caps
Agreements under EFS wider level have an upper limit of £12,500 for farms up to 25ha in size. After this, it increases by £26.67/ha to a maximum agreement value of £20,000. The UFU meeting heard that payment caps have been restrictive for some of the farmers that signed up to the scheme.
One example was the farm of meeting chair and UFU deputy president Victor Chestnutt. He has undertaken watercourse stabilisation measures under EFS wider level, but the payment cap meant he could not fence off the entire waterway and livestock can still get into the stream in certain fields.
“Why have a cut-off point? We need an outcome-based approach to these schemes,” Chestnutt said.
Group level EFS aimed at P hotspots
A new group level scheme within the Environmental Farming Scheme (EFS) will be targeted at areas of farms that have a high risk of phosphorus (P) run-off into waterways.
This follows on from soil testing and aerial mapping of the Upper Bann river catchment last winter, which showed that less than 10% of land in the catchment is at high risk of P run-off.
“Hotspots exist and not all farms have the same level of run-off risk. Measures can be targeted at farms and fields where risk is highest. This is the approach we will be taking in the new DAERA-funded project,” Dr John Bailey from AFBI said last week.
Speaking at the UFU soils event in Cookstown, Bailey said that the new EFS will initially be focussed in the Upper Bann and Colebrooke river catchments.
“Rather than focus on a whole sub-catchment, we will go either to a farm or fields within a farm where the biggest risk of run-off is occurring and see if we can put in EFS interventions. We will then monitor and see if that makes a tangible difference to the P levels in the water coming out of the end of the catchment,” Bailey said.
He said that EFS measures to improve water quality include creating ungrazed riparian buffer zones, planting woody strips along rivers and erecting fences to keep livestock out of watercourses.
Big issue
Bailey described P levels in waterways as the “big issue next to ammonia” for NI farming and said that reducing the amount of P coming onto farms in the form of bought-in feed was a key solution to the problem.
“If you used more improved quality grass instead of concentrates, it can not only save you significant money, but it can also reduce your P surplus. It’s actually a win-win situation to make best use of grass,” he said.
NI farms need 180,000t of lime
With soil pH levels lowered by the acidifying effect of nitrogen fertilisers and the leaching of calcium and magnesium out of soils, 180,000t of lime is required each year to correct the problem, maintained Dr John Bailey from AFBI.
He said that the figure of 180,000t/year is close to the present usage: “Lime usage took a major dip between 1995 and 2012, so the present deficit of 1.2m tonnes will have to be corrected before annual usage can be normalised at 180,000t/year.”
The advice for soils that are high in magnesium has been to apply calcium-based lime instead of magnesium-based product. However, sourcing calcium-based lime has become more difficult in parts of NI. Bailey advised farmers to ensure that lime is applied to low pH soils, regardless if it is calcium or magnesium based.
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