Would you like horticulture managers to be rewarded for actions which benefit the environment? Do you have creative ideas for how a payment scheme would make sustainable horticulture worthwhile? This is your chance to help shape the way environmental good practice is rewarded by Defra in the future.
Defra have given growers the opportunity to design and test how such a scheme could run, starting in July 2020, as part of their Environmental Land Management Scheme (ELMS) Tests and Trials programme. Over the next fifteen months, the Landworkers’ Alliance will be working with growers from across the horticulture sector to develop and try out ideas for how to achieve these objectives. We are seeking large, medium and small-scale fruit and vegetable growers, vineyard and glasshouse managers, including both those with little previous interest in environmental issues and those with a long history of taking environmental action in their business, to participate in the various phases of this trial. Spaces are limited to we will select those who are interested on the basis of achieving a diversity of scales and methods of operation.
Aim of Trial: To develop a way to reward fruit and vegetable producers who are already growing in ways which benefit the environment, and encourage all growers to further improve their environmental land management.
There are 2 ways that you can participate:
1) Participation in the co-design of the scheme
There will be 6 – 2 hour sessions by ZOOM starting TODAY July 23 from 5:30 PM until 7:30 PM and then every Monday for the next 5 weeks. Participating growers will be paid at a rate of £25/hour for their time, so £50 for each two hour call- £300 in total. Co-design participant brief is here.
2) Participation in the trial to create a land management plan.
Participating growers will be paid £150/day, for 3-7 days of testing methods, giving feedback and comparing different ways of receiving advice. More importantly, they will have input into the development of the new payment scheme that will replace BPS. Trial Participant Brief is here
Contact Jyoti Fernandes (jyoti@landworkersalliance.