UK Agricultural Policy Post-Brexit Editor: Will Melling Writers: Bence Borbely, Trevor Chow, Tom Nott, Yang Zuo
6. Regulation 6.1 Overview Given the market does not adequately reward the delivery of environmental public goods, the ELMS will be an effective way for government to intervene and utilise public funding to deliver them191. The ELMS will be a form of ‘market-based’ regulation, a genuinely original piece of legislation with which to tackle environmental issues in the UK agricultural sector. Nonetheless, the ELMS will need to sit alongside legal regulation, as part of a wider agricultural system as the government propose192. However, details of this regulation are lacking from current government proposals, with farmers unsure as to what the regulatory side of the ELMS is going to look like. All the government has detailed, so far, is that they are keen to learn from the regulatory downfalls of the Countryside Stewardship Scheme and to lessen any future regulatory burden on the farming community193. This section will outline what form regulation should take in terms of participation, legislation, enforcement, and the Tier system. It is worth noting that regulation on UK food standards is crucial to the ELMS. If UK farmers are regulated to high environmental standards, but imported food is not, UK farmers will not be able to compete fairly. Food imports should, therefore, also have their social and environmental externalities internalised into their costs. There needs to be a renewed focus on food supply chains to improve resilience, farmer incomes, and environmental sustainability194.
6.2 Participation Participation in the ELMs and basic standards should not be legally required. Farmers should sign up to the ELMS due to the business case and financial incentives for doing so, rather than being forced to participate in the scheme. Higher rates of participation and success can be achieved by working with farmers than by forcing them to comply with a difficult set of regulations.
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DEFRA, 'Environmental Land Management Policy discussion document' (DEFRA, 1 February, 2020) <https://consult.defra.gov.uk/elm/elmpolicyconsultation/supporting_documents/ELM%20Policy%20Discussion %20Document%20230620.pdf> accessed 4th January 2021 192 DEFRA, 'Environmental Land Management Policy discussion document' (DEFRA, 1 February, 2020) <https://consult.defra.gov.uk/elm/elmpolicyconsultation/supporting_documents/ELM%20Policy%20Discussion %20Document%20230620.pdf> accessed 4th January 2021 193 DEFRA, 'Environmental Land Management Policy discussion document' (DEFRA, 1 February, 2020) <https://consult.defra.gov.uk/elm/elmpolicyconsultation/supporting_documents/ELM%20Policy%20Discussion %20Document%20230620.pdf> accessed 4th January 2021 194 The Soil Association, 'The future of British farming outside the EU' (The Soil Association, 20 March 2017) <https://www.soilassociation.org/media/10560/soil-association-report.pdf> accessed 4th January 2021
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