4
Deferred
Adapt ELM schemes by 2025 to fund comprehensive, standardised soil testing and data collection.
Conclusion
By 2025, Defra should adapt the Environmental Land Management schemes to fund the testing and assessment of all key physical, chemical and biological soil attributes decided by the soil health indicators project. These schemes should only support tests that are easy to use, cost-effective, and meet an approved standard, to collect more robust and comparable data. This must involve working with industry on suitable tests and assessments and collaborating with supply chain assurance standards to ensure farmers need only produce data for one common set of soil health tests. The ELM schemes should incorporate mechanisms to feed publicly funded data back into the soil health monitoring programme. This data and analysis should be anonymised, aggregated, secured and not be used to monitor progress on individual farms. (Paragraph 25) 48 Soil health
Government Response Summary
The government's response committed to producing a Land Use Framework in 2024 and mentioned other policy initiatives like Local Nature Recovery Strategies and a National Action Plan for Sustainable Use of Pesticides, completely deflecting from the recommendation to adapt ELM schemes to fund soil health testing by 2025.
Government Response
Deferred
Government Response
Deferred
HM Government
Deferred
The Secretary of State for Defra has written to the Chair of the House of Lords Land Use in England Committee to confirm the Government’s commitment to produce a Land Use Framework in 2024. A Land Use Framework for England will help to inform how we maximise co-benefits and manage any trade-offs, supporting the delivery of resilient, multifunctional landscapes, which will be dependent on the local context and national needs. The purpose is to inform the development of land use policy and to provide additional information for the decision makers who work and own the land to make efficient decisions based on local knowledge and strategies. For example, Local Nature Recovery Strategies will help to steer nature restoration projects by proposing locations where they can be most beneficial. We are currently considering whether further publications would contribute to ensuring that advice for land use decision makers remains up to date and accessible to all. We also hope to publish the National Action Plan for Sustainable Use of Pesticides shortly.
Timeline
Recommendation age
2.5 yrs
Report published
05 Dec 2023