Farming, housing, habitats and infrastructure are some of the major uses of land across England. The Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (DEFRA) is currently reviewing land use, in preparation for a new policy. This will include recommendations for land use changes.
This stems from the statutory commitments to halt biodiversity loss (in the Environment Act 2021) and to achieve net zero targets by 2050 (in the Climate Change Act 2008). In short, land use is high on the policy agenda.
With the majority of land privately owned, a national land use policy might seem at odds with the principle of private ownership. Yet DEFRA stresses that land use change will not be mandated. For context, Scotland has regularly published a land use policy since 2011. The UK Climate Change Committee called for a land use strategy in 2020.
Agricultural land constitutes around 67% of England's total land area (according to government figures), meaning attention is focusing on what a land use policy could look like for farmland.
What are some of DEFRA's ideas?
- Increasing how multifunctional land is – for example, farming alongside a renewable energy system, or growing both food and biofuel crops
- Retaining the best-grade agricultural land for food
- Categorising according to the extent of land use change:
- Making land management adjustments while continuing existing farming activity (for example, starting to monitor soil health). Many landowners and tenants already recognise this, particularly if they are part of an environmental land management scheme.
- A step up from this could mean a landowner introduces a new environmental element such as agroforestry, while maintaining existing farming activity.
- More significant change could involve a greater shift by a landowner towards environmental use. Put another way, the landowner would be focusing on producing 'non-food outcomes'.
- Beyond this, other land might be more suitable to 100% land use change from agricultural to environmental. Wider-scale landscape and habitat restoration schemes and woodland creation are some examples.
Landowners considering land use changes (including but not limited to the above examples) need to know that these will be financially viable opportunities. Will a land use change be profitable, sustainable, subject to fair tax treatment and benefit from incentives?
Aside from policy, natural capital markets (in essence, monetising environmental activities and outcomes) will be an important part of the picture. DEFRA highlights that more investment is needed in private nature markets and the government has a role here. The British Standards Institution recently published a set of natural capital standards – these are expected to enhance the integrity of the sector and boost interest.
DEFRA has a lot to achieve if it wants to join up existing policy on food, nature, development and energy, help landowners make land use decisions and contribute to climate and nature targets. We must wait for the policy to find out how this all fits together and how landowners might benefit.
The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.
