My Lords, first, for the purposes of all of Report, I declare my interests as a farmer and landowner, as chair of the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, and chair of the advisory board of the Government’s Global Food Security programme on research. In Amendment 29, we have the key to getting the whole new farming and environmental land management programme to work on the ground. It is exciting that we have a new approach to helping farmers produce our food and manage our countryside. But with some basic ELM schemes still being piloted, neither we nor even the Government know exactly where we are going.
The pilot stage of ELMS is, in a way, providing the Government with their own training. I hope they will learn from it, but one thing is certain: farmers and land managers will need all the help and training they can get if we are to make this new approach work on the ground. Because there is little time between now and the putting in place of thousands of ELMS contracts, we must get a training scheme in place as soon as possible—training a farmer not only in how he can best judge what he and his land can provide of value for the nation, but in how best to deliver that value. With proper training it will be better for farmers, better for our flora and fauna, better for visitors and above all, as others have said, better for the taxpayers, who might then get the best returns that their money can buy.
Farming is one of the most isolated jobs in the world. Farmers are not necessarily slow to change, but without some form of proper training scheme it will be hard for them to engage successfully with this brave new world. Without their successful engagement, not only will the brave new world not happen but farmers themselves will fail financially, in their droves.