Interested landowners or tenant farmers should act sooner rather than later to secure a 30-year commitment to the scheme. It will likely be either a s106 agreement with the local authority or a conservation covenant with a ‘responsible body’. Conservation covenants are a new concept and we await information on how these will take effect.
The conservation work itself is expected to be done by the farmer or landowner but may be carried out by the ‘responsible body’ in return for a fee. Fee rates and caps are yet to be determined. There is nevertheless an opportunity for interested farmers and landowners to think ahead and plan for this alongside their BPS reduction and their ELM Scheme plans. Neither biodiversity nor ELMS need reduced farming outputs but carbon capture and ammonia compensation are areas for which payments are likely to be available in the near future. This follows the policy ‘public money for public good’.
