the annual charge you suggest would be the best way.

However dunno what you mean by productive land, but I assume you mean farmed land. This wouldnt make sense - farmers would sit back, take poor land out of production, carry on to claim ELS & HLS monies on top of SPS. This would be on top of the extra 7% of land they are reportedly about to take out of production due to the "greening" payment in the 2014/15 CAP reform.

Having more land taken out of production would lead to a smaller food supply and more imported goods -goods with a lot of food miles and hence not good for the environment.

Posted By: Tony Martin, Nov 24, 13:08:54