Green schemes 'money for old rope'

MANY landowners are cashing on a £200 million scheme to encourage organic and wildlife-friendly farming by applying for measures already in place.

A National Audit Office (NAO) report published yesterday said it was not clear how much benefit the organic farming scheme, funded by European Union money and UK taxpayers' cash, was delivering for the environment.

There is a risk also that all the available EU funds will not be used because the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) overestimated how many farmers would take up the scheme. Edward Leigh, chairman of the Commons public accounts committee, warned the scheme was "money for old rope – being paid to let your hedges grow".

The agri-environment programme pays farmers for conversion to and upkeep of organic practices and for management of land to protect the natural environment or historic landscape.

According to the NAO report, 57 per cent of farmers opt for environmentally-friendly measures that involve managing features such as hedgerows or margins around fields that were already in place on their land.

The more challenging options were rarely taken up under the Organic Entry Level Stewardship Scheme, the report said. It also warned Defra had not obtained sufficient evidence of the benefits the scheme was delivering.

Leigh said: "There is a consensus that organic farming is good for the environment. The problem here is that the department is not in the position to measure what environmental benefits have accrued from the money spent. This is simply spending in the pious hope that something good must somehow come out of it."

National Audit Office head Amyas Morse said: "Defra should learn from this scheme and get a lot better at putting credible measurement arrangements in place to demonstrate whether public funds are being used properly. It appears likely that Defra's scheme helped to deliver environmental benefits by encouraging organic farming, but we can't draw a similar conclusion on the land management measures."

A spokeswoman said Defra was disappointed the report did not fully recognise that the environmental impact of the scheme provided value for money. She said: "Their own survey assessed the environmental benefits as positive.

"We recognise the concern that EU funds could remain unused – that is why we manage the funds as part of the total programme."