Farming Minister George Eustice’s has visited Richard Bramley’s 500-acre Manor Farm in Kelfield near York (pictured below) where he shared more detail on the new simplified Countryside Stewardship offers being rolled out in the New Year for agreements starting on 1st January 2019.

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Earlier this week the Defra Secretary of State described the way taxpayers money is currently paid to farmers as "inefficient, ineffective, inequitable, and environmentally harmful".

Four new Countryside Stewardship offers will be introduced for farmers and land managers from the New Year. Significant improvements have been made to the scheme to make it simpler and easier for farmers and land managers to apply.

The new offers aim to help more farmers get back into agri-environment schemes, with options popular with farmers on the old ELS schemes brought to the fore in these new packages.Mr EUstice said:“We want more farmers to be going into these schemes, so what we have launched today is a new countryside stewardship offer, a simplified set of packages: one for arable farms, one for mixed farms, one for upland farms and one for lowland grazing farms.

This redesigned scheme focused on simplicity should be seen as a stepping stone towards future domestic agricultural policy, as ministers reiterated their commitment to a Green Brexit this week.

The existing scheme, developed by the Government in accordance with strict European Union rules, has been criticised for being overly bureaucratic and, with 70 different options to choose from, excessively complex. Mr Eustice agreed that the revised scheme design was “recognition that we didn’t get things right first time round”.

Farmers can apply to join the scheme in January next year and the Minister said he hoped far more farmers would sign up than the 5,000 or so in England who joined last year’s scheme. “Michael Gove has been very clear that we want a new agri-environment scheme to be the cornerstone of our future policy and I think farmers that enter this new countryside stewardship, this simplified offer, will find that they are in the right place for future policy to come,” he said.

The Government has already pledged to match the support farmers currently receive from the CAP until the end of this parliament and set out the intention to go on supporting farmers where the environmental benefits of that spending are clear.

Mr Bramley’s environmental measures have boosted wildlife and soil quality at his farm and 90 bird species, including many of conservation concern, have been recorded at the farm where a 19 percent increase in species has been seen during his ten-year involvement in previous entry level stewardship schemes. Having been put off from joining the current complicated replacement scheme after EU Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) reforms in 2015 he said: “The new scheme offer seems much simpler to both apply for and manage, whilst still recognising the public benefits that stewardship brings.”

Mr Eustice said there are clear benefits to the environment and therefore to productive farming of Countryside Stewardship schemes, particularly if they function effectively. He said: “There is a real connection between our soil health and water quality and if we get some of these fundamentals right we can really start to reverse the fortunes of our wildlife and our natural environment and see things improving.”

Agreements with farmers under the new scheme will run for five years. Options include planting nectar flower mixes, adding buffer strips to fields and hedgerow management. Both the existing mid and higher tier countryside stewardship schemes will remain as “more ambitious” options for farmers, the Minister said.

The CLA,NFU and RSPB all welcome the new proposals.