Providing nutritious, affordable food while protecting and restoring the vital natural systems that sustain life is a critical challenge for the coming decade. Given the deepening climate crisis and the nature emergency, it is clear that we need an urgent transition towards sustainable agriculture. Farming that delivers healthy diets and resilient and fair livelihoods protects and restores natural ecosystems, reduces pesticide use, and contributes to meeting our Net Zero Carbon commitments.

Following our departure from the European Union and the constraints of the Common Agricultural Policy, Wales has been given an opportunity to develop such a new approach to farming. A new way to pay farmers to manage their land for nature and climate is set out in the Welsh Government’s new Sustainable Farming Scheme (SFS). It is currently in its final stages of development and will replace the current payments from 2025. It marks a critical moment for nature, farming and the people of Wales. It is not an exaggeration to say this is the most significant opportunity to reform farming in a generation.

Intensive agricultural practices across Wales have been a primary driver of nature loss. The routine use of chemical fertilisers has led to the accumulation of chemicals in our soils, waterways, and coastal waters. The application of high levels of manure has seen excess nutrients polluting some of the most iconic rivers in Wales, like the River Wye.

Wales is already classified as one of the world’s most nature-depleted countries in the world. The State of Nature Report 2023 revealed that one in six species faces the looming threat of extinction in Wales. According to the report, Welsh wildlife has decreased by 20% on average since 1994. With over 90% of land in Wales farmed it is clear that farmers are the key to natures recovery. Many farmers are recognising that nature and farming can go hand-in-hand and are leading the way already in regenerative farming in Wales.

The Wildlife Trusts understand that these impacts are not the fault of farmers but rather the result of a broken food system which is also failing farmers. Farmers are being buffeted by the increasing impacts of a changing climate, price volatility and inflationary pressures on energy, fuel, and input costs. Global events such as Covid-19 and the war in Ukraine have exposed the fragility of our modern food system and its heavy reliance on ‘just-in-time’ global supply chains.

This is not just an issue for Wales but for our current global food production system, which is devastating our planet’s natural systems on land and at sea, driving biodiversity loss, causing widespread deforestation, and the pollution of our soils, seas and rivers. As two inseparable crises, climate change is already damaging natural systems whilst the exploitation and loss of nature leave us ill-equipped to reduce our emissions, adapt to future change, and ensure our own long-term future. The recent COP 28 climate negotiations in the United Arab Emirates highlighted the urgent need to address all emissions contributing to climate change, including agricultural emissions in Wales (10% of Wales GHG emissions).

We often hear rhetoric that land can’t be taken out of production to provide public goods as habitats such as woodland and peat are restored. Food security is important, but the facts do not bear out the widely held assumption that Welsh farming feeds Wales. In 2021, only 5% of beef produced in Wales was sold here. 80% of this beef is consumed in the UK, and 15% is consumed abroad. Likewise, only 5% of lamb from Wales is consumed in Wales, with 60% sent to the UK and 35% consumed in export markets abroad. The UN Committee on Food Security concluded that globally, we produce enough food to feed 1.5 times the earths population. The problem is systems failure in what we produce, harvest, distribute, process, and market, as well as imbalances in the consumption of food.

To increase our food security, a shift to a regenerative, sustainable system is needed. Farmers should be recognised and paid to store carbon by revitalising natural habitats, and this, in turn, will help to reduce flooding water pollution and reverse wildlife declines. These public goods are increasingly critical to helping Wales to adapt to our changing climate. Welsh taxpayers would then see the direct benefit of public money spent on farm subsidies.

A more mixed regenerative farming would include more fruit and vegetable production to provide nutritious local food. Over time, vegetable production in Wales has decreased dramatically; vegetables are only grown on 0.1% of the land in Wales. Yet obesity is a leading public health concern in Wales. Almost a quarter of adult’s self-report to be obese, an estimated 600,000 adults, while 1 in 8 reception-age children are obese. It is estimated that obesity costs the Welsh NHS £73 million/year.

There is a more sustainable future for farming but public funding is critical, and to date, such support is lacking. There are opportunities for farmers to work together to gain access to new forms of funding, but this also needs support. We have to support Welsh farming if we want to restore nature in Wales. It’s time for a new way to view farming in Wales, and the new farm payments in Wales could be key to unlocking this future.

What is the Sustainable Farming Scheme?

The Sustainable Farming Scheme will replace the current system that has been funding Welsh farmers. The Scheme has been designed to provide funding for measures that deliver sustainable environmental benefits. It aims to address environmental challenges, assist in combatting the climate emergency, and revitalise and restore Wales’s nature. The new Scheme will pay farmers to store carbon, hold back flood waters and create nature-rich habitats known as public goods. The Scheme will open in 2025, and farmers will have up to 2030 to join the Scheme, but the intention is to ensure as many farmers join the Scheme as early as possible in this transition period.

Specifically, to join the Scheme, farmers must carry out a series of “universal actions” which include:

• providing 10% tree cover and 10% semi-natural habitat on their land
• building healthy soils through soil testing and soil health planning and protecting soils
• maintenance of existing semi-natural habitats to optimise benefits for livestock and wildlife
• integrated pest management to help minimise the use of harmful chemicals
• put in place management plans in agreement with Natural Resources Wales on all designated sites for nature
• manage existing ponds and scrapes and create new wetlands
• develop and manage hedgerows so that they provide suitable habitat for wildlife as well as provide dense stock-proof barriers
• maintain existing woodland to optimise the benefits for wildlife and, where appropriate, livestock
• active management of modified peatlands to protect soil carbon and increase biodiversity

Further actions will be encouraged through additional tiers to the Scheme – the Optional and Collaborative Layers. The latter, in particular, will offer the opportunity for farmers to work together on nature restoration at a landscape scale. However, there are concerns about delays in the roll out of these tiers and if sufficient resources will be available from Welsh Government to encourage farmers to work together.

There have been concerns that these measures will bring land out of food production. But this false assumption has to be challenged; nature and farming can and do sit side-by-side, and without nature, there would be no farming. The new payments are using taxpayers’ money, so we need to be clear about what the benefits are for the people of Wales. By providing these public goods, fewer homes will be flooded, our air will be cleaner, and we can store carbon, reducing the effects of climate change and derive considerable health benefits from having more nature in our lives.

Agriculture is part of the solution to our climate and nature crises. Farmland accounts for over 90% of land use in Wales, so there is vast scope for positive change in the agricultural sector, with the potential for farming to play a critical role in securing nature and climate recovery – but it requires system change and sufficient resources to be fully implemented. A new system is desperately needed, and the Sustainable Farming Scheme, as proposed, offers a once-in-a-generation opportunity to support farmers in transitioning to climate- and nature-friendly farming.

Wildlife Trusts Wales welcomes the Sustainable Farming Scheme as a transformative opportunity for sustainable farming, crucial for nature’s recovery in Wales. However, we need to ensure farmers are properly rewarded, and we will be working to ensure more resourcing for the Scheme and to ensure the proposed measures in the Scheme work for nature and the people of Wales.