In an open letter to George Eustice, Secretary of State for the Environment, the National Beef Association [NBA] has challenged the substance of the Environmental Land Management Scheme [ELM], declaring it not fit for purpose on several levels.

In the letter, NBA Chief Executive Neil Shand emphasizes the ‘protracted speed of the rollout’ of the scheme and the continuing failure to address future support for livestock farmers following the withdrawal of BPS support post-Brexit. He points out that “The levels of disengagement that are emanating from the industry should by now have sounded very sonorous alarm bells in the corridors at Defra’.

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Mr Shand also notes that environmental improvement and soil quality cannot be achieved without livestock, commenting that ‘UK agriculture revolves around a continuous cycle involving livestock of one species or another; the failure to recognise this within ELMS is a glaring omission and a massive missed opportunity’. He continues that whilst the NBA understands - and accepts - that improvements in water, soil and air conditions need to be addressed, this should not be ‘at the expense of our deep-rooted agricultural history’.

Mr Shand believes that beef producers’ contribution to the countryside in terms of both livestock contribution and quality food production has been ignored,  and warns that Government ‘continues to do so at the peril of our future food security and self-sufficiency’. He describes ELMS as ‘unfit for purpose’ and likely to lead to ‘serious financial trauma to our industry, further weakening our already fragile food security’. He describes ‘the beginning of the end for home produced food [and] a greater reliance on environmentally expensive and inferior quality imports’

Mr Shand concludes that in its current format, ELM is discouraging food production, especially at a time where costs are rising exponentially. More seriously, he suggests that ELM in its current format, coupled with the end of the CAP subsidy will be catastrophic for the livestock sector.

He calls on Defra to rethink ELMS, saying ‘we have an opportunity to devise a system that will be fit for purpose and made-to-measure for the UK. It’s imperative the correct decisions are made for the long term as well as for the short term, both for farming in general and livestock producers in particular.  If we get this wrong, there will be no quick fix; the effects – unintended or otherwise - will ripple through time for generations to come’.