With a goal by 2028 of achieving a renewed agricultural sector, producing healthy food for consumption at home and abroad
Sustainability
The United Kingdom, country of honor at the fifteenth edition of the International Agricultural Show of Morocco (SIAM), has charted its course towards sustainable agriculture, based on new approaches for a renewed agricultural sector on the horizon. 2028.
The period of agricultural transition in the United Kingdom, whose economy is mainly driven by services, began on January 1, 2021. Between 2021 and 2027, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs “DEFRA (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) intends to gradually reduce and eventually stop non-targeted direct payments in order to invest the money freed up to support agriculture in different ways, in particular through the payment of farmers in to improve the environment, improve animal health and welfare and reduce carbon dioxide emissions.
By 2028, the department aims to achieve a renewed agricultural sector, producing healthy food for consumption at home and abroad, where farms can be profitable and economically viable without subsidy. It is also about making agriculture and the rural world contribute significantly to environmental objectives, including in the fight against climate change. In this wake, in the face of climate change and increasing food demand, it is important to manage soils sustainably to mitigate risks to long-term productive capacity and encourage farmers.
Post-Brexit
The UK has participated in the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) of the European Union (EU) for decades. Since Brexit (the UK’s exit from the EU), the Agriculture Act 2020 has been passed to provide a legal framework for the government to develop very different approaches to supporting agriculture in the future. The government has guaranteed the current annual budget to farmers every year, until 2024, according to a Research Briefing from The House of Commons Library, an information and research service based in the UK Parliament. However, in England, this money will be spent in different ways in the future. And to explain that the government is phasing out CAP-type direct payments and introducing payments for farmers to provide public goods such as environmental and animal welfare improvements. These changes are taking place during a seven-year “agricultural transition” period starting in 2021.
This year is the last year in which the BPS “Basic Payment Scheme” (a rural payment scheme providing financial support to the agricultural industry), will be paid. From 2024 to 2027, differentiated payments will be made each year. Farmers will receive de-linked payments based on their BPS payments in 2020-22, provided they are eligible and claim BPS for the 2023 scheme year. De-linked payment rules will not require farmers to hold land or to continue farming. As a reminder, the 15th edition of SIAM will be held under the theme “Green Generation: for sustainable food sovereignty”.
The choice of the United Kingdom as the country of honor reflects, according to the Ministry of Agriculture, Maritime Fisheries, Rural Development and Water and Forests, the excellence of the ancestral relations between Rabat and London and will offer participants a great opportunity to discover and explore the richness and diversity of British agriculture.
This article is originally published on aujourdhui.ma
