Dr Ellie Chowns

I welcome this timely debate on the future of farming, in the week in which the SFI rug was pulled out from underneath farmers. Surely the future of farming has to be young farmers. I have been in touch with some young farmers in my constituency to ask what they think I should talk about in this debate. I was sent a screenshot by Beth, who was partway through her SFI application. It said, “Thank you for doing your application. When you are ready, submit it. If we need to close applications, we will give you six weeks’ notice. We will publicise this on gov.uk and we will email you.” If that is not a broken promise, I do not know what is. Louise, another farmer in my constituency, said that she was “angry, disappointed, upset and exasperated…we have followed the Government’s advice to the letter, and been kicked in the teeth”. Another farmer said: “Pulling SFI is absolutely criminal—just more short-term thinking that forces us into decisions we don’t want to make.” Ben said: “yet another nail in the coffin for…family farms…with no warning environmental projects that had been in planning for months on our farm will have to be stopped….We cannot plan for the future when the rules keep changing.” The future of farming needs to be S, F and I: S for sustainable, F for fair and I for in partnership.