Things we're doing
We recently held a webinar for livestock and grassland farmers in England. In the webinar, we gave an overview of the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) offer and how the scheme supports both productivity and the environment. We also covered the Animal Health and Welfare Pathway and the grants on offer through the Farming Equipment and Technology Fund. In this post, we summarise what we covered and include the recording and links for you to learn more.
On 15 January, we’ll open another round of the Large R&D Partnerships competition. Part of the Farming Innovation Programme, this competition offers a share of £7.8 million to farmers, growers and foresters in England to take forward ideas that improve productivity, sustainability, resilience and move the sector towards net zero. Together with our delivery partners Innovate UK, part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), we published the competition guidance today.
On 13 October, we held a webinar on the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) for organic farmers and growers in partnership with the English Organic Forum. In this post, you'll find a link to a recording of the webinar.
On Wednesday 6 September, we held a webinar for farmers to learn more about the funding available in England. In this post, you can watch a recording of the session.
In this film, farmers from the Aqualate Mere catchment share their experiences of taking part in Tests and Trials. This test created a land management plan and worked to set priorities for the catchment, incorporating biodiversity, water quality and carbon sequestration.
Offered alongside better advice and fairer, more effective regulation, the Slurry Infrastructure grant is designed to help livestock farmers make better use of their slurries to meet crop need and cut pollution. In December, we opened the first round of the Slurry Infrastructure grant for applications. In this post, I’ll explain how we prioritised projects and what will happen next. I’ll also describe some changes we are making to the payment process in light of the high demand for the scheme.
Alongside government funding, there are a range of private sector opportunities for farmers and land managers to access new income streams to invest in their holdings. We want farmers and land managers to be able to confidently and securely access payments from both the public and private sector for the environmental benefits they produce. Published today, the Nature Markets Framework and the new Green Finance Strategy set out how we will enable this.
Through 5 pilots, we’re exploring different ways to support new entrants to develop successful land-based businesses in England. We’re now over halfway through. In this post, I’ll share a brief overview of our participants, what we’ve learned and our next steps.
Farming legislation affects all farmers and land managers. As content designers, part of our job is to make sure that the rules about farming on GOV.UK are easy to find. We asked a group of volunteers to share their experience finding the rules. In this post, I’ll share a summary of what they told us and what we did to improve things.
Farmers, vets, industry representatives, and colleagues in government are shaping the Animal Health and Welfare Pathway together. The first step of the pathway is the Annual Health and Welfare Review. In this post, we share how we used co-design to create the yearly vet visits.
