How Steve Reed can deliver on his five priorities
It was good to hear the new Defra Secretary of State, Steve Reed, set out five clear priorities for the department as he took up his post at the start of July:
1. Clean up our rivers, lakes and seas
2. Create a roadmap to move to a net zero waste economy
3. Support farmers to boost food security
4. Ensuring nature’s recovery
5. Protecting communities from flooding
Nature-based solutions can help to address all five of the Secretary of State’s priorities. For example investing in good soil health can help to reduce run-off into watercourses, reduce the amount of inputs needed to grow crops, boost productivity, support greater biodiversity and improve water infiltration. Natural flood management schemes, if delivered at scale, can contribute to nature recovery as well as cleaning up watercourses and protecting communities from flooding. Planting new hedges and bringing existing hedges into better management could support food production by providing habitat for beneficial beetles who predate on crop pests, as well as absorbing phosphates and nitrates from the soil and slowing down run-off in times of heavy rainfall.
So our farmers and rural land managers are well-placed to help the Secretary of State to deliver on his priorities, provided that it makes business sense for them to do so. I make no apologies for putting it so bluntly. Society – through Government policy – has prioritised cheap and plentiful food production for many decades and farmers have responded to the policy and economic signals to do just that. As society finally starts to recognise that clean water, healthy soil, fresh air and abundant biodiversity are essential to our long term wellbeing, we need to find a new set of policy and economic signals to support their delivery too.
Many of the policy signals are already in place, and there are now dozens of grant-funded pilot projects which are testing and trialling natural capital markets to try to find those economic drivers. The work is challenging at times, hampered by limited demand for a handful of outputs – namely statutory biodiversity net gain, regulatory nutrient neutrality and voluntary carbon. To really get things moving at pace and at scale, we need to move rapidly to a much bigger market for environmental ‘bundles’ which can deliver multiple benefits for water quality, biodiversity, carbon sequestration and soil health. What is missing at the moment is real demand for these benefits from society and perhaps this is where the new Government could really help. What would it take to make UK businesses invest in sustainable and nature positive land use? Should the TNFD be made mandatory, so that business have to report on their impact on nature? Or do we use tax breaks, a favourite policy lever, to stimulate demand? Carrots or sticks? Both may be needed if we are to see real change.
Kate Russell
Chief Operating Officer
15th July 2024