Aimed at farmers in the Cotswolds/Wessex areas a series of workshops on the impacts of changes to direct payments, exploring options for farming system change and developing change management skills were held in November 2021 with follow up workshops in February 2022.
The challenges caused by COVID-19, extreme weather events and the forthcoming changes to agricultural support may result in many farmers in England needing to adapt their business models and carefully consider options for the future. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) Future Farming Resilience Fund will provide support to farmers and land managers as they prepare for the agricultural transition.This project will provide information, tools, advice, and support for farming businesses throughout this period of change. The programme will run until 28 February 2022.
Aim
The focus of the project is to provide each farmer with a toolkit to plan, implement then monitor changes at small-scale before acting to roll-out change across the business, and to facilitate the use of the toolkit on-farm, whilst also ensuring that it is in good shape for wider roll-out.
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Workshops
Workshops were held in November 2021 in Gloucesteshire, Somerset and Hampshire with follow-up workshops to be held in February 2022. The initial workshops allowed farmers to quantify the business impacts of direct payment reductions and explore options for change. 50 attendees at the workshops had the opportunity to register for 1-to-1 change support visits from the NIAB and TAG Consulting agronomy team to take place in December 2021/January 2022.
For more information email mary.mcphee [at] niab.com (Mary McPhee).