Sustainable Farm Scheme Evidence Review (SFS)

Informing policy for a sustainable and resilient farming future

The Sustainable Farm Scheme (SFS) Evidence Pack Review is a set of reports and technical annexes published in 2019 and 2020. They summarise current academic thinking on a range of agricultural and environmental specialist topics and were created to help inform the Welsh Government as it seeks views on proposals to support farmers after Brexit.

The reviews explored the evidence for interventions around a number of key areas, and their causal links to environmental, economic and social outcomes, with an integrated assessment made to highlight the key findings and their interdependencies.

SFS Evidence Review: Integrated Analysis

The Welsh Government commissioned a series of evidence reviews to support the development of proposals for future agricultural schemes. The reviews explored the evidence for interventions around a number of key areas, and their causal links to environmental, economic and social outcomes.

Report 10. SFS Evidence Review: Integrated analysis

SFS Evidence Review: Considerations for the new scheme

The second part of the review task provided an opportunity for the evidence review team to offer some suggestions as to the concept, design, operation and evaluation of the new scheme.

Report 10. SFS Evidence Review: Considerations for the new scheme

Soil Nutrient Management for Improved Land

The Brief: Establish intervention logic for Soil Nutrient Management (SNM) plans across all improved agricultural land. Establish the environmental benefits including GHG emissions reduction, biodiversity, water quality and air quality which will be secured through the universal uptake of SNM plans. Identify the contribution that better SNM will make to the economic resilience and sustainability of Welsh agriculture.

Report 1. SFS Evidence Review Technical Annex 1: Soil Nutrient Management

Sward Management

The Brief: Establish the intervention logic for supporting the diversification of swards in improved grassland. Establish the Greenhouse Gas (GHG), water quality, air quality and economic benefits. Establish the environmental outcomes including GHG emissions reduction, biodiversity, water quality and air quality, which will be secured through diversification of sward management. Identify the contribution that sward diversification will make to the economic resilience and sustainability of Welsh agriculture.

Report 2. SFS Evidence Review Technical Annex 2: Sward Management

Soil carbon

The Brief: Improving Soil Carbon Management (SCM) is vital for a resilient future of agriculture in Wales. This report is in two parts, Improved Soils and Upland Soils, as the type and impact of management interventions may differ markedly due to fundamental differences in structure, organic matter and nutrient content.

Report 3. SFS Evidence Review Technical Annex 3: Soil carbon

Ecosystem resilience

This review covers evidence for management to improve the habitat condition of semi-natural habitats within farmland and common grazings, including farm woodland and other trees and hedgerows within farmland.

Report 4. SFS Evidence Review: Ecosystem resilience

Farm resilience

The Brief: All farms are essentially businesses, but direct subsidy has not encouraged a business approach. The purpose of this review is to examine what's needed to effect a behavioural change, looking at previous examples of how such a change programme could be explored, as well as the effectiveness of any current and future potential interventions to improve business capacity.

Report 5. SFS Evidence Review Technical Annex 5: Farm resilience

Funding

The Brief: Most environmental outcomes have characteristics of both public and private goods. Therefore, despite the potential conflict, it is within this area of overlap between public and private goods that most opportunities to combine funding sources are likely to exist. This review identifies examples of best practice where a combination of public and private funding is securing environmental outcomes.

Report 6. SFS Evidence Review Technical Annex 6: Funding

Greenhouse Gas

The Brief: In line with the Well-being of Future Generations goal, ‘a globally responsible Wales’, this report reviews methodologies and tools for assessing remote emissions in addition to those arising directly from farms.

Report 7. SFS Evidence Review Technical Annex 7: GHG

Air quality

The Brief: A review of the potential interventions relevant to air quality impacts on ecosystems and human health.

Report 8. SFS Evidence Review Technical Annex 8: Air quality

Flood

This review identifies management interventions which have a quantifiable positive impact on flood alleviation and reviews the evidence base to assess the ability to spatially target management interventions to deliver tangible flood mitigation and risk reduction outcomes.

Report 9. SFS Evidence Review: Flood

SFS Logic chains

Environmental-valuation evidence logic chains to show how different social benefits from policy outcomes were developed to input into potential payment rates for measures by farmers under the new Sustainable Farming Scheme (SFS) in Wales.

Report 40. SFS Logic chains

Carbon Sequestration in Agriculture

This review aims to find ways to reduce the GHG emissions from the main sectors – soils and land use, manures and fertilisers and livestock farming – specifically the dairy, beef and sheep sectors. The report makes the assumption that existing production levels are maintained, but public health pressures to reduce the consumption of red meat and dairy products will challenge this assumption.

Report 68. Decarb evidence review

IMP overview for SFS Stakeholders

The slidepack used for presentation on 28th July for the SFS stakeholders meeting

Report 79. IMP overview