Case studies

Date published: 29 August, 2019

For recent changes to this guidance, please see the bottom of the page.

This guidance is effective from 1 January, 2020

Here are some examples of different types of farm businesses in Scotland and how the Greening requirements affect them. This might help you when considering your Greening requirements.

Jack Smith is an arable farmer with 100 hectares of cropped land (arable) and 50 hectares of permanent grassland. He needs to consider each of the three greening elements:

  • permanent grassland – there are 50 hectares of permanent grassland on the unit but none are designated as Environmentally Sensitive Grassland. Jack must still complete an annual nitrogen fertiliser and lime plan for the permanent grassland to meet his Greening requirement
  • crop diversification – Jack used the table we provided for crop diversification (Annex A) and confirmed that to meet the Greening crop diversification requirement, three separate crops must be grown

He chooses to meet this requirement with the following crops:

  • 32 ha winter wheat – 32%
  • 28 ha spring barley – 28%
  • 21 ha winter oilseed rape – 21%
  • 4.80 ha field beans + 0.2 ha associated EFA margins (TGRS) - 5%
  • 2.88 ha peas + 0.12 ha associated EFA margins (TGRS) - 3%
  • 6 ha seed potatoes – 6%
  • 5 ha fallow – 5% (EFA fallow)

Total = 100 ha arable land = 100%

There are eight crops for the purposes of crop diversification, the main crop is not more than 75 per cent of the arable area and the two main crops together are not more than 95 per cent of the arable land.

Using the table provided for EFA (Annex B), he also confirmed that to meet the EFA requirement at least five hectares (100 ha of arable land x 5% = 5 ha) must be managed as EFA. Jack’s farm meets its EFA requirement by having five hectares of fallow land.

However if he decided not to choose the EFA fallow prescription, he could meet his EFA obligation with one of the following solutions:

Option A

3.4 ha of margins (3.4 ha x 1.5 = 5.1 ha EFA)

Please note: if Jack includes any of his permanent grassland area as EFA i.e. a margin, this will mean that the area of EFA on his permanent grassland will now be classed as arable land. He must claim it as permanent cover on his Single Application Form and it will be added to his total arable area calculation, effectively increasing his EFA requirement.

Option B

7.68 hectares of nitrogen fixing crops (field beans 4.8 ha x 1.0 = 4.80 ha and associated EFA margin 1 metre wide = 0.2 ha x 1.5 = 0.3 ha) and (peas 2.88 ha x 1.0 = 2.88 ha and associated EFA margin 1 metre wide = 0.12 ha x 1.5 = 0.18 ha). Total EFA for this option is: 8.16 ha EFA.

For this option, Jack can decide not to claim all of his nitrogen fixing crops as EFA, just the 5.1 ha required to meet his greening requirements.

Option C

17 hectares of catch crops (17 ha x 0.3 = 5.1 ha EFA)

This is not an exhaustive list of options available to Jack, just an example of how he may choose to meet his EFA requirement.