Farmers invited to plough into £15m funding for new habitats and curbs on pollution

Projects to curbs diffuse nutrient pollution are potential contenders for a share of £15 m in government funding for farmers and landowners unveiled last week. The government’s plan is to support up to 25 projects to create “new habitats for wildlife, boost efforts to reach net zero, alongside sustainable food production.”

The government said farmers and land managers will be able to bid for a share of this initial development funding, “with significantly more investment in the years to come as projects move from development to delivery.” The programme builds on an earlier round launched last year and will focus on projects of at least 500 hectares.

The projects will be administered by Natural England and the Environment Agency. The project applications will be judged on their “environmental and social impact, value for money and suitability for the scheme.” Unlike the previous round, the latest one will include a food production criterion “to ensure prospective projects take food production into consideration and mitigate any negative impacts on this where possible.”

The scheme is supporting 22 landscape-scale projects across England. The government highlighted a regenerative farming project among those selected last year as demonstrating “how food production and environmental delivery can go hand in hand.” The project looks to reduce diffuse phosphate pollution in the Diver Axe in Dorset.