• The National Food Strategy White Paper is yet to be published and  address the role of agriculture in reducing food emissions. 
• The Government intends to phase out the use of peat in horticulture and ban the sale of peat and peat containing products in the amateur sector by the end of this parliament, subject to consultation.
• The England Tree Action Plan commits the Government to fund public and private sector nurseries and seed supplies, as well as review the tax treatment of trees and woodlands to ensure that tax incentives align with their environmental goals.
• The Agriculture Bill, legislated in late 2020, replaces the EU's Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) with a new domestic subsidy scheme, the Environmental Land Management scheme (ELM). If designed and implemented correctly, this could represent a substantial improvement on the CAP, leading to greater focus on delivery of environmental benefits.
• Out of 27 recommendations for the agriculture and land use sector, six have been met in full, with eight partially met, and twelve not met.

• The Government must produce a decarbonisation strategy to reduce emissions in agriculture and land use, in addition to acting on the targets set out in the recently passed Environment Act. Urgent actions include:

  • Strengthening the post-CAP regulatory baseline, addressing nitrogen pollution from fertiliser and methane emissions from agriculture.

  • A clear strategy to address dietary change and food waste.

  • Setting out the mechanism by which afforestation can be funded via private investment, whether auctioned contracts or a carbon trading scheme.

  • Providing sufficient public funding for afforestation and peatland restoration where private investment cannot deliver.

  • Setting obligations for water companies and peatland owners in SSSI's to restore peatland on land they own.

  • Extending the ban on rotational burning of peatland to all peat, as the current ban only covers 9% of the UK's peat.

  • Delivering greater ambition and clarity on long-term peatland restoration targets as part of the forthcoming Net Zero Strategy.

• Agricultural and land-use emissions in 2019 were 67MtCO2e, or 13% of the UK total (CCC Sixth Carbon Budget, 2020). 
• Emissions fell 1% from 2018-19 (CCC Progress Report, 2020). 
• Major emission reductions will come from changing agricultural practices, falling meat consumption, decreasing food waste, and increased afforestation, energy crops and peatland restoration  
• Current government ambition and policy in one area (diet change) is unstated and in another area (peatland restoration) ambition and policy is insufficient and limited and risks falling behind on the pathway to net zero 

1

Strengthening the regulatory baseline to ensure low-regret measures are taken up

Need to extend existing regulation that address on-farm emissions - the Nitrates Directive should be amended to extend the coverage of Nitrate Vulnerable Zones to all of the UK

No

2

Strengthening the regulatory baseline to ensure low-regret measures are taken up

Introduce new legislation to cover currently unregulated emission - extend the Clean Air Strategy to cover methane emissions via enteric fermentation from livestock

No progress has been made on introducing new regulation such on enteric fermentation from livestock. Extending the Clean Air Strategy to target emissions from enteric fermentation from 2025 could significantly reduce agricultural GHG emissions. The Environment Bill in its current form does not address this.

3

Strengthening the regulatory baseline to ensure low-regret measures are taken up

Ban on rotational burning of peatland

Legislation has been announced to ban rotational burning of peatland in certain circumstances. However, the ban is only for deep peat in protected areas, which means it will only cover ~9% of England's peatland. The England Peatland Action Plan says that the Government will 'keep under review the environmental and economic case for extending the approach' to all peatland areas

Partly

The Government launched a consultation on measures to end the retail sale of peat and peat containing products in horticulture in England and Wales from 2024. The Wildlife Trust are critical of this and say the ban should occur immediately and extend to professional as well as amateur markets.

5

Strengthening the regulatory baseline to ensure low-regret measures are taken up

Set an obligation for water companies to restore peatland on land they own, and similarly for owners of peatland in SSSI.

6

Funding for actions above the baseline to support more costly measures

Funding for afforestation/agro-forestry should be auctioned contracts or a carbon trading scheme, which could be privately funded. Early auction trials in 2020 were successful, but small scale. This needs to be urgently increased.

Partly

7

Funding for actions above the baseline to support more costly measures

Public funding should be made available to encourage the non-carbon benefits of afforestation, to ensure afforestation rates beyond private demand.

The Government will boost the existing £640 million Nature for Climate Fund with a further £124 million of new money, ensuring total spend of more than £750 million by 2025 on peat restoration, woodland creation and management. The England Tree Action Plan commits £500m of the £640m Nature for Climate Fund to support afforestation between 2020 and 2025. This will drive England tree planting rates of 7,000 hectares a year by 2025 - the UK-wide target is 30,000 hectares a year by 2025. Post-2024, the ELM scheme in England could also support afforestation and peatland restoration, via the Local Nature Recovery (smaller scale) and Landscape Recovery (larger-scale sites) schemes. Pilots for the Local Nature Recovery scheme are occurring in 2021, with pilots for the Landscape Recovery scheme due in 2022-2024.

Partly

10

Funding for actions above the baseline to support more costly measures

Funding needs to be made available for low-carbon farming practices which go beyond the regulatory baseline and which impose costs on farmers (e.g. robotic milking parlours)

In the Agricultural Transition Plan, there is a commitment to take the money saved by reducing Direct Payments and make this available via grants and other financial support to farmers, including for sustainability objectives. While many of these grants are for land-use change (e.g. hedgerow creation), the Farming Investment Fund for Equipment and Technology and Transformation will provide this financial support, and is open for applications in late 2021. Key to its success will be its scale and the design of the application process.

Partly

11

Funding for actions above the baseline to support more costly measures

The Government should set out a clear pathway to incentivise zero-carbon agricultural machinery and develop technology options here.

No clarity on where off-road mobile machinery will be addressed by the Government, having been omitted from the Industrial Decarbonisation Strategy.

No

12

Enabling measures to address non-financial barriers

Support schemes to strengthen skills, training and market commercialisation of innovation low-carbon farming options

The Agricultural Transition Plan announces a new skills body, the Institute for Agriculture and Horticulture. This will launch later in 2021, and will focus on skills development in the industry, including a focus on 'creating profit and protecting the planet'. Further details will be needed here to assess its potential to drive skills growth in low-carbon farming options, and there is no mention of market commercialisation

Partly

The England Tree Action Plan commits the Government to:

- "Provide funding to support UK public and private sector nurseries and seed suppliers to enhance quantity, quality, diversity and biosecurity of domestic tree production. This will include capital grants and support to augment investment and stimulate innovation."

- 'Provide a Nursery Notification Scheme that will help better plan for supply and demand in the sector. This will support nurseries and seed suppliers to produce the right stock at the right time.'

15

Enabling measures to address non-financial barriers

Address contractual arrangements that may constrain uptake on tenant farms/common land

The Agriculture Bill introduces measures to enable tenant farmers to engage in ELM schemes where a landlord with undue reason, aiming to address the issue of restrictive clauses in tenancy agreements.

Yes

16

Encouraging consumers to shift diets and reduce food waste

Should implement a strategy with low-cost low-regret options to encourage a 20% shift away from all meet by 2030, rising to 35% in 2050, and a 20% shift from dairy products by 2030.

No

17

Encouraging consumers to shift diets and reduce food waste

Implement a strategy to reduce food waste by 50% in 2050 and 60% in 2050, with the public sector taking a lead.

The Government state that they are keen to work with industry to help them reduce their environmental impacts and provide information about household food waste clearly to consumers in an efficient manner, without creating unnecessary burdens, costs or time-lags. However, this is not a strategy, with the National Food Strategy White Paper yet to be released. 

No

18

Interim policies to avoid a hiatus in action

Interim policies should be rapidly implemented to avoid a hiatus in action while designing the post-CAP long-term regulatory framework (e.g. ELMs will have full rollout in 2024, but funding needs to be available for sustainable land-use prior to this)

The Agricultural Transition Plan makes provision for this, e.g. committing that the phasing out of Direct Payments will be replaced by equivalent level of financial support for farming business and sustainability provisions.

In addition to this, DEFRA has updated the Countryside Stewardship Scheme for 2022. This agri-environmental scheme should go some way to covering the gap between current support schemes and the full roll-out of the ELM. Similarly, the Government has committed to producing an interim Office for Environmental Protection (OEP) to cover some gaps between removing the EU's environmental framework and introducing a UK framework via the Environment Act.

Yes

Provide incentives and address non-financial barriers across all of the UK to: • Plant trees on 2% of farmland by 2025 while maintaining their primary use, rising to 5% by 2035.

• Extend hedgerows by 20% by 2035 and better manage existing hedgerows.

• Increase the area growing energy crops across the UK to 6,000 hectares per year by 2025, and 30,000 hectares per year by 2035.

Extend current ambition set out by the UK government and the devolved administrations to implement a comprehensive delivery mechanism to address degraded peatland:

• 17% of upland peat is restored, equivalent to 200,000 hectares (and where this is not possible, stabilise the peat) by 2025; 58% by 2035 (700,000 hectares) and the remaining area by 2045.

• Rewet and sustainably manage 12% of lowland peat used for crops by 2025 (24,000 hectares), rising to 38% by 2035 (72,000 hectares).

• Rewet 8% of lowland grassland area by 2025 (18,000 hectares), rising to 25% by 2035 (54,000 hectares).

• Remove all low-productive trees (i.e. less than YC8) from peatland (equivalent to 16,000 hectares by 2025), and restore all peat extraction sites by 2035 (equivalent to 50,000 hectares by 2025)