England’s nature-friendly farming budget to be cut by £100m

The environment land management scheme pays farmers to make room for nature by, for example, sowing wildflowers. Photograph: Nature Picture Library/Alamy

The government is to slash the nature-friendly farming budget in England by £100m in order to help fill what ministers say is a £22bn Treasury shortfall, the Guardian can reveal.

Nature groups and farmers have called this a “big mistake”, saying it jeopardised the government’s legally binding targets to improve nature.