Money will grow on trees for big companies who are buying up large amounts of land for carbon trading projects

 This article, to my disappointment, was not published in the Landworker 2022 summer edition.

The run down of rural economies that Landworker has continuously highlighted will proceed for the foreseeable future under the Tories. This is because Boris Johnson’s Government is facilitating the transfer of land that should be used for food production and sustainable environmental job creating projects to wealthy companies. Standard Life and Aviva are amongst those set to profit from carbon trading projects that are based almost exclusively on planting swathes of trees.

In the Winter edition of Landworker, Dr Charlie Clutterbuck raised concerns that the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) that was this year being introduced following Brexit to replace the European Union’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) farm subsidies would prove unpopular with farmers.

DEFRA claims the SFI is based around incentivising sustainable farming practices, profitable food production, improving air and water quality, protecting wildlife and boosting soil health. Soil scientist Clutterbuck though has multiple doubts including how soil quality will be assessed, payment mechanisms and a lack of sufficient scientists and research facilities to provide farmers with advice.

There is also the fact that Johnson’s “100 per cent guaranteed” promise to farmers in 2016 that subsidies to farmers would be the same as they were paid under CAP has proved to be worthless as famers will lose half their former subsidies by 2025 and will also be forced to apply for funds under the SFI, when they can only access 1/10th of the previous subsidy. Many are not bothering, either carrying on with the old 'Countryside Stewardship' schemes, ploughing up more land to plant grain for which they are expecting high prices due to the Ukraine war, are considering taking up the government offer to pay them three years subsidies to leave farming altogether.

There is no mention of food production, in any of the new subsidies, and many farmers fear new trade deals will lead to increased competition against cheap food from elsewhere grown under lower standards. Furthermore, the government has put off - for the fourth time - any check on food imports from EU for health and safety standards. Rees-Mogg suggested this delay may be permanent. It is clear this government wants 'cheap food' from anywhere in the world, threatening rural livelihoods here.

Landowners are taking back land from their tenants. Defra's own figures report that land on Farm Business Tenancy (FBT) Agreements fell by 3% in England between 2019-20 - the first reduction since FBTs were introduced in 1995. Landowners are clearing the way for carbon offsetting.

Under the Woodland Carbon Guarantee Scheme, which was allocated £50m in 2019, land managers in England can apply for funds to plant more trees and create new woodland in return for guaranteed payments as those trees grow and lock up and store carbon from the atmosphere. Similar schemes exist in Wales and Scotland.

Successful participants are to be offered options to sell Woodland Carbon Units to the government over 35 years at a guaranteed unit price per tonne set by auction. Each unit can be used to report against UK-based emissions or to use in claims of carbon neutrality or Net Zero emissions. The UK is committed to hitting net zero carbon emissions by 2050.

According to the Green Alliance, a charity and independent think tank with a track record of over 40 years, ‘carbon sequestration alone could be worth up to £1.7billion per year in UK, which is roughly half the total value of public support payments for agriculture.

Late last year it was reported that the Foresight Group had bought up a farm in Carmarthenshire's Cothi Valley and that multinational companies had already secured more than £1.3 million of Welsh Government funding to plant trees in Wales.

180,000 hectares of new woodland are needed in Wales by 2050, equivalent to 3,750 average-size family. “The Welsh Affairs Committee is rightly raising its concerns that the consequence of major companies investing in farming land to offset emissions will price Welsh farmers out of the market and lead to even less food being produced. According to Geraint Davies, Labour MP for Swansea West, “carbon offsetting is destroying Welsh farming communities,” said Clutterbuck.

Using land alone to remove the world’s carbon emissions to achieve ‘net zero’ by 2050 would require at least 1.6 billion hectares of new forests, equivalent to five times the size of India or more than all the farmland on the planet.

Scotland is now at the centre of a ‘Net Zero land grab’, with wealthy individuals - so-called Green Lairds - charities and large companies competing to profit from the commodification of climate change and the growth of a global carbon offsetting market to create its "lost forest". BrewDog bought Kinrara estate in Strathspey to create its “lost forest.” Aviva and Standard Life are engaged in similar offsetting venture.

“ Such ventures carry a veneer of environmental respectability. So too do the rewilding visions of the likes of Anders Povisen, the Danish retail tycoon and biggest private landowner in Scotland. But the Net Zero land grab is inflating the cost of estates and pricing out those local communities which were supposed to be at the heart of the Scottish government’s approach to land reform. Land prices rose 31% last year, “ explains Clutterbuck.

A report by Community Land Scotland (CLS) said the drive to plant carbon off-setting forests in the Highlands also risked widening inequalities in rural areas. If investors are making money from the climate change emergency, while communities are left behind, how does that tie into the idea of a ‘just transition’ to a net zero carbon economy?” asks Calum MacLeod, CLS policy director. 

The NFU Scotland has reported: “On a weekly, if not daily basis, members are contacting us from all parts of the country about the loss of productive Scottish agricultural land to wholesale forestry".

Clutterbuck points out: “One of the things that sets carbon sequestration aside from previous land grabs is its aura of respectability. When lairds were clearing estates for sheep, or industrialists were using them as a playground for their rich friends, there was no disguising the capitalist forces at play.”

But there is big money across the UK behind all this. There is a plethora of new companies setting up claiming they have the credentials to trust with carbon trading. Then there are those doing the buying and they are a bit harder to find, but include Shell, Unilever, Google & Microsoft. According to the Green Alliance those in the top 20 Woodland Carbon Code credit holders include project developers, forestry managers and charities (40%) air transport (1%), retail (1%) finance and insurance (17%) plus oil and gas (37%).

At the current time various organisations are telling farmers not to sell. The Central Association of Agricultural Valuers (CAAV) says "Not only is the value of the carbon stored in farmers’ soils and woodland likely to increase in coming years, signing up to selling it might unwittingly tie them into restrictive agreements.

As a soil scientist, Clutterbuck has been taking a keen interest in evidence gathered by researchers at the University of California and others that forestry may not be as effective a carbon sink as pasture, especially when properly grazed. It may well be that carbon is stored deeply within the soil and as temperatures rise globally this will be a more secure location compared to forests that are vulnerable to fires.

Clutterbuck is clear: “life cannot be reduced to a single element, carbon. The best way to address global warming is to invest to regenerate the land and rural economies here to allow for more food production. This will allow overseas communities to use their land to produce food they need for themselves and by reducing the amount of imported food then the UK will cut down on its own massive carbon footprint.”