A flagship Government policy to encourage tens of thousands of farmers to enter environmental schemes has become a complete shambles, the president of the National Farmers' Union will say today.
Tim Bennett will tell farmers at the NFU annual conference in Birmingham that Government computer systems are failing to enable farmers to sign up to the projects designed to preserve wildlife and protect traditional features of the countryside.
An NFU survey has found that farmers are being prevented from joining the scheme by IT problems at the Rural Development Service.
The survey, which had replies from hundreds of NFU members about their experiences of the scheme, found:
* A real desire by farmers to join environmental schemes but that ten per cent of them were still waiting for the necessary paperwork
* A lack of clear guidance about criteria leading to time wasting and confusion
* Half of the respondents had delayed their applications because of a lack of confidence in the system.
Environmental Stewardship was designed as part of Common Agricultural Policy reforms and covers a range of environmental work including the use of wide borders on field edges for wildlife, hedgerow maintenance, beetle banks, maintenance of ancient stone walls, skylark plots in cultivated fields and the use of wild bird seed in traditional grassland.
Mr Bennett will say: "Agri-environment payments like the Entry Level Scheme will play a key role in the future. It is tragic that the real enthusiasm with which farmers greeted these schemes has been soured by desperately poor implementation.
"The good news is that despite the shortcomings more than 1.6 million hectares are already under environmental agreements but Defra needs to iron out the application system before farmers become disillusioned and give up.
"This is still a win-win opportunity so I will continue to encourage my members not to be put off by the problems in the expectation of future improvements.
"The NFU will also continue to work with Defra to suggest ways of improving the administration of the scheme."
No one from the Rural Development Service was available for comment.
* Reports from the NFU conference will feature in tomorrow's Birmingham Post. ..SUPL:
