British farmers are being paid to leave crops rotting in the ground or to “plant” food for the birds
Last week, TrailBlazingTruths posted a video clip on TikTok of Cornish farmer Keith Andrews explaining how the UK government is incentivising farmers not to grow food.
“We’ve been offered £2,500 to join a scheme for the next three years where we don’t supply you any food,” he said.
“I’m going to plough a field. I’m going to put spring barley in. I’m going to get £440 off the Government, per acre. Then when it comes to crop size, leave it [to] rot in the ground.
“So, I don’t get no straw for the cattle, you don’t get nothing for your bread, for everything we make.
“I can also plant bee mix which is for birds and bees. I can plant wild bird seed which is for wild birds.
“I can also be paid to buy a tonne of bird seed, like anybody puts in their garden for the birds, and threw it out on the ground once a week. I can get paid for that.
“My accountant says ‘do it’. Because in doing that, I’ve not got to buy fertiliser – which since the Ukraine war it’s gone from £250 a tonne to £1,000 a tonne, so in order to fertilise your food I’ve got to buy fertiliser at £1,000 a tonne.
“So, I’ve now got a crop that I don’t have to spray, I don’t have to send nobody out there with a tractor, I don’t have to fertilise it or I can just leave it in the ground to rot.”
We were unable to establish details for when or where Andrew’s speech was given. However, the government incentivisation Andrews referred to has been in place for a couple of years and has been expanded and the incentives increased over time.
A scheme to pay farmers for actions they take, going beyond regulatory requirements, to manage their land in an “environmentally sustainable” way was set out by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (“Defra”) in their Agricultural Transition Plan 2021 to 2024.
Called the Sustainable Farming Incentive (“SFI”), the scheme is made up of a set of specified standards and is open to all farmers and occupiers with management control. It is one of three that make up the environmental land management (“ELM”) schemes, which replaced the European Union’s Common Agricultural Policy.
The ELM schemes have the stated aim of “support[ing] the rural economy while achieving the goals of the 25 Year Environment Plan and a commitment to net zero carbon emissions by 2050.” This alone tells us that the schemes have dubious origins and motives.
SFI was launched by the UK government in 2022 following an earlier pilot. In June 2023, the Government launched a “new and improved” SFI 2023 offering farmers additional actions and more flexibility to choose the actions they want to get paid for, offering more than twice as many new SFI actions as originally planned.
Incentivising farmers to plant hedgerows instead of crops, Minister of State at Defra Sir Mark Spencer said: “There’s no minimum or maximum land area or hedgerow length, so farmers can choose how much land to cover with their SFI agreement.”
In September 2023, Defra posted a blog which demonstrated that they hadn’t thought through the dire consequences of their eco-activism:
Through SFI, our aim is to support farming and farmers. We want to protect and improve the environment, food production and food security. We obviously don’t want SFI to be used in a way that comes at a cost to any of them.
We know that sometimes sparing land for a year, or 2 or 3 can make food production more resilient and can support farmers to achieve better margins from their land. Some of our SFI actions do take land out of food production for a short time, which helps farmers do this.
The evidence shows that a small number of farmers, roughly 1% of those who applied for SFI in 2023, entered 80% or more of their farm into actions that involve taking land out of food production.
While flexibility and freedom of choice are important features of SFI, we think this goes further than is necessary. And, in the context of economic volatility and challenging weather conditions, there is a risk that this could become more of an issue.
The Sustainable Farming Incentive, UK Government, 13 September 2024
Defra’s warning about food security was issued in September 2023. But this warning was ignored a few months later with the announcement of yet more upgrades to the scheme.
In November 2023, Steve Barclay was appointed the Secretary of State for Defra. Within two months, he announced “the biggest upgrade to the UK’s farming schemes since leaving the European Union.” These upgrades included:
Enhanced payments for ‘creation’ and ‘maintenance’ options to improve the long term incentives for farmers to create habitats and ensure they are rewarded for looking after habitats once they have created them.
Premium payments for actions with the biggest environmental impact or combinations of actions that deliver benefits at scale, such as £765 per hectare for nesting plots for lapwing, and £1,242 per hectare for connecting river and floodplain habitat.
Biggest upgrade to UK farming schemes introduced by the Government since leaving the EU, UK Government, 4 January 2024
In May 2024, the UK government finally realised their folly. The scheme proved so popular to struggling farmers that the Government was forced to issue a crackdown, warning that growers could only take 25 per cent of their land out of direct food production for environmental projects.
The Telegraph reported that Mark Spencer, the Minister of State for Food, Farming and Fisheries, said the initiative “was always intended to be implemented on smaller areas of land … Food production is the primary purpose of farming and we are taking action to clarify this principle.”
Farmers, and the public at large, don’t need to be told that the primary purpose of farming is food production. And farmers, and the public at large, would have implemented policies to support farmers to grow more food, not less.
Keith Andrews is not the only farmer issuing warnings about the Government’s policies. In April, Jeremy Clarkson warned that farmers are being incentivised not to produce food and said he has stopped growing food in some of his fields because it is more profitable to take government eco handouts.
Writing in the Sunday Times magazine, he said: “I have signed up to the government’s eco-friendly grant scheme and will be planting things that aren’t food in three fields.
“They’re good for the soil and they’re good for my bank balance. But it means I’m not growing stuff people can eat,” Clarkson said.
“I know one chap who has taken 60 per cent of his farm out of food production and he’s not alone. So, yippee. All that stored carbon and all of that fixed-in nitrogen.
“But what if you want some bread? You’ll have to get a loaf made from wheat that was grown abroad. And how’s that good for global warming?”
In the video below, Russel Brand highlighted the issue raised by Clarkson and asked, why would you incentivise farmers to not grow food?
ENGINEERED HOLODOMOR: UK farmers are being PAID to destroy food crops
Lance D Johnson
In the spirit of the Soviet Union’s Holodomor of 1932, the UK government has implemented a scheme that pays farmers NOT to grow food. This preposterous move has riled up controversy and disturbed farmers across the UK, hearkening to the days when government’s intentionally starved populations for their own political and territorial gain.
Today’s UK starvation scheme, known as the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI), forms part of the government's broader strategy to encourage “environmentally sustainable” farming practices. Instead of introducing these new farming practices gradually, the UK government has decided to destroy agricultural production altogether and put millions of people at risk of starvation and staggering food prices.
If this scheme isn’t intentionally designed to starve people, then it could be based on the foolishness of government leaders who have come to believe that endless money printing will solve all their problems and make all their visions a reality. If these leaders are willing to shut down farms and till over food sources, allotting a set amount of cash to the farmers, then the whole continent is set to suffer under communism.
Food security at risk in the UK, as government plots total takedown of agriculture
Cornish farmer Keith Andrews recently brought attention to the farming takedown scheme through a viral TikTok video, where he disclosed that farmers are being offered financial incentives to leave their fields fallow or dedicate them to non-food producing activities for up to THREE YEARS!
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Andrews revealed that he was offered £2,500 per acre NOT to grow food every year, opting instead to plant bee mixes and wild bird seeds — a practice that earns him additional payments under the SFI.
"I’m going to plough a field. I’m going to put spring barley in. I’m going to get £440 off the Government, per acre. Then when it comes to crop size, leave it [to] rot in the ground," Andrews explained in the video.
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) introduced the SFI as part of its Agricultural Transition Plan, which seeks to align UK agriculture with environmental goals such as achieving “net zero carbon emissions” by 2050. Initially launched in 2022, the SFI has since expanded to include more totalitarian visions, while providing greater financial rewards for farmers who adopt “environmentally friendly practices.” The claim of sustainability is nothing but doublespeak.
Jeremy Clarkson, a prominent figure in the farming community, voiced his frustration with the policy in a recent article, noting that it incentivizes farmers away from food production to secure more profitable environmental grants. "I know one chap who has taken 60 per cent of his farm out of food production and he’s not alone," Clarkson remarked, highlighting concerns over the sustainability of such practices in meeting the nation's food needs.
Money printing alone cannot remedy the real-life consequences of shuttered farms and lost food sources
Minister of State at Defra, Sir Mark Spencer, defended the initiative, claiming that its role in promoting biodiversity and reducing humanity’s carbon footprint is unparalleled. "There’s no minimum or maximum land area or hedgerow length, so farmers can choose how much land to cover with their SFI agreement," Spencer stated. Sir Mark Spencer is willing to destroy the entire farming infrastructure in the UK to appease the government’s hysterical belief that the world is going to end because of carbon.
Despite Spencer’s insane environmental beliefs, citizens are demanding that the scheme be shut down because it undermines food security and places undue financial pressure on farmers already grappling with the rising costs of production. The bribes and payouts from the government will not be enough to sustain them and prevent them from producing and maximizing the fruits of their labor. Worse yet, these payouts are being used for destructive ends that have real life consequences that money alone cannot remedy.
Since the pushback, the UK government has reduced the threat of communism, pledging to decommission 25% of farmland away from food production, and designating payouts that restrict, but do not collapse agricultural production altogether -- at least not yet.
We have seen detailed YouTube reports in the past( unfindable now) of how the subsidy programs in the US have achieve this .
The farmers get signed up to grow certain crops in defined places, the Government has detailed plans and maps of their farms and if they deviate the subsidies get wiped= ruination.
It takes a deal of courage and money to get out of these subsidy traps.
Anagram The Plot Thickens=Lockstep Then Hit