The Environmental Farmers Group (EFG) has been set up by a group of farmers in Hampshire, Wiltshire and Dorset to deliver highly assured, co-ordinated environmental projects on a catchment scale.
The cooperative currently comprises over 230 farmers covering 116,000ha (over 1% of England’s farmed area) and is growing quickly in other parts of the country including North Lincolnshire, Northamptonshire, Devon and Yorkshire.
Legal requirements to offset environmental impact of developments can delay house building as it is often difficult for developers to find farmers with an appropriate land parcel. The EFG model provides one professional point of contact, through its partner Natural Capital Advisory (NCA), with access to 100s of farmers willing to provide nutrient and Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) offsets and other environmental services, in locations across England.
The EFG has an excellent understanding of natural capital markets and issues facing housing developers and Local Planning Authorities (LPAs). It has successfully completed phosphate offset agreements and has a pipeline of requests for nutrient and Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) offsets at various stages of completion. This means the required processes and documentation are already in place, speeding up the delivery of solutions.
EFG chairman and managing partner of Allenford Farms, Rob Shepherd, said: “The farmers in the EFG have an impressive record of landscape-scale conservation successes and command the respect of conservation and government agencies.
“Our aim is for developers and planners to see EFG as the ‘go-to’ platform for environmental trades.”
Fair trades for all
Arriving at a valuation of credits that is fair for both its members and the developer/LPA is a core objective of EFG. On the one hand, there have been cases where developers have been charged excessive prices for offset projects. On the other there are examples of farmers receiving insufficient funding to cover the costs of providing the required environmental services, which is not in the long-term interest of either party.
Thanks to its fair funding structure and high standard of assurance, the EFG has been endorsed by central government and regularly engages with Natural England, Defra and the Environment Agency at the highest level. As a result, it was recently highlighted in the government’s Green Finance Strategy as a model for how farmers can help meet national targets for clean water, biodiversity recovery and carbon net zero.
Ready-to-go options
44 farms within the EFG have already completed biodiversity baseline audits using Natural England’s Biodiversity Metric. This was match funded by Defra and carried out by a team of qualified ecologists.
EFG is also in the process of completing a catchment-wide feasibility of all suitable locations for nutrient offset solutions from its members. This is enabling the identification of a wide range of deliverable environmental projects on the farms with a calculated number of biodiversity units or nutrient credits, giving developers ready-to-go options, suitable for a variety of offset requirements.
In addition, as well as long-term projects, EFG is developing temporary nutrient reduction solutions, using cover cropping or fallow-land management on farmland to unlock house building in the short term. These schemes generate bridging-credits for developers while they wait for longer term offset schemes such as wetlands to be constructed.
Simon Packer, director of Turley, planning consultancy said: “The EFG is a very interesting and encouraging initiative.
“There was an increase in nutrient mitigation schemes in the Hampshire/Wiltshire area a couple of years ago, but the credits available are rapidly being consumed and I’m not convinced there is sufficient alternative capacity coming through.
“I can also see strong evidence of increased demand for the kind of off-site biodiversity offset solutions EFG can deliver.”
Aside from helping house builders meet local and national planning requirements, the EFG is providing solutions for food supply chains to inset their environmental impact; for water companies to meet regulations and for organisations wishing to improve their Environmental Social Governance (ESG) scores to increase investment attractiveness and shareholder value.
Together, these markets will help support farmers – who manage a majority of the UK’s landscape – to deliver national environmental targets for the benefit of all.
ENDS
Hello
I read your article with interest as we prepared a modest BDNG proposal with Wealden District Council as part of a planning application for 2 houses. In the end WDC decided that they didnt require BDNG for our application because their policy hadnt been adopted. It was however an interesting exercise to go through and as the policy will shortly be adopted we are ready to respond to demand from local developers.
There is lack of clarity as to what the local authority wants but the situation should be clarified in the near future.
You don’t mention any details of the type of contract the landowners will be asked to enter to secure the BDNG. We discussed a section 106 with WDC which required the land to be managed as woodland for 30 years (after which time general forestry rules apply).
If possible please could you confirm the details of any agreements reached with the EFG farmers/landowners group. Thanks
Steven Bartlett NFU sent me your details with regard to potentially joining.