When you apply for the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI), we want your experience to be smooth and we want to offer you as much flexibility as possible.
In this post, we’ll set out what you can do and what we’re doing to make the process of applying as straightforward as it can be, so you can join the 14,000 other farmers, growers and land managers who've already applied.
Our new online SFI actions checker tool will help you filter the actions you can get paid to do on your land. It complements the scheme guidance which you can find on GOV.UK and in the SFI Handbook.
The process to begin your application starts on the Rural Payments service.
Start by checking that you are eligible and your land is eligible. You should also check the registered details on your digital maps are up to date.
If you request updates before you apply, it'll speed things up. It takes time to make changes so it’s best to request them as early as you can.
Do make sure your contact details are up to date and your permissions are correctly set for SFI in the Rural Payments service.
You need to get your land use and land cover right for the system to show the relevant actions for you. This allows us to automate the question ‘is this land eligible or not?’ This automation has helped us to reduce the processing time to a week or two.
We’ve made it easier for you to make changes to land use and land cover. Land eligibility is a vital part of your application. We're assessing ways to streamline this.
Once you’ve done your preparation, applying for SFI should be straightforward. If you happen to run into any difficulties, for example if a parcel is not showing for you, get in touch with the RPA and they’ll help to resolve it. Remember to include your Single Business Identifier (SBI) number in your message or have it handy if you call them.
The RPA produced an SFI checklist leaflet if you’d like take a look, to print it off or share it.
On average, it takes 15 days to process an application.
Occasionally, it can take longer depending on their size and compatibility with other schemes.
We know that applying for an SFI agreement if you farm common land can take longer.
Management control is the biggest factor slowing down an application’s progress. For example, when a landowner and tenant farmer submit separate applications and a parcel appears on both applications, the RPA undertakes checks to make sure that there isn’t any duplication or overlap of land.
It’s worth noting that if you’re applying for an agreement on a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI), you must either give notice to Natural England or you must already have consent from Natural England. The RPA needs to make sure that the actions applicants want to do are compatible with any existing agreements on the land. The RPA can only process an application once Natural England has been in touch with them. Guidance on applying for SFI actions on SSSIs can be found on page 118 of The SFI Handbook.
Until recently, applicants needed to provide notice to Natural England where there was an SSSI within a parcel with MOR1 actions. MOR1 no longer requires applicants to gain consent or to notify Natural England. This is part of our commitment to make things as easy as possible for those who want to apply.
Please do share your feedback so we can continue to improve the process of applying for an SFI agreement and the guidance.
In cases where there have been delays, the RPA has been in touch with applicants to talk through the issue.
Once you submit your application, it will be processed as quickly as possible – as mentioned, the average time this takes is 15 working days.
The scheme isn’t competitive so anyone who is eligible will get an agreement.
Once your application has been submitted and all compliance checks are complete, the RPA will notify you.
Continue to check Rural Payments service for any updates or correspondence from the RPA. Delays in responses will have a knock-on effect.
You will receive your first payment 4 months after your SFI agreement starts. After that you’ll be paid every 3 months, so you have a regular, reliable income.
Once you’re in SFI, you can add more land and actions to your agreement each year and you can have multiple agreements.
We recently announced that we are doubling the Management Payment for SFI so those with existing agreements will receive up to an extra £1,000 this spring. It will be extended to Countryside Stewardship Mid Tier for the first year of agreements starting by March 2025.
You can use the Rural Payments service to raise a query about your SFI application, agreement or payment. Just sign into the Rural Payments service and select ‘Create or view a query’.
If you have a general question about SFI, you can contact the RPA by:
We want farmers and land managers in England to confidently and securely access payments from both the public and private sector for the environmental benefits and food they produce.
In March 2023, we published a refreshed Green Finance Strategy and the first Nature Markets Framework. These documents set out what we’re doing to provide clarity and ambition for the development of nature markets.
We set out our commitment in both the Nature Markets Framework, and the payment principles for environmental land management to support the combination of multiple public and private sector payments.
This compatibility relies on being able to demonstrate that additional action has been taken and that no double funding occurs for the same environmental outcome.
We recognise this can be a complex area. We’re working to simplify it with farming groups, academics, businesses and conservation experts.
We’ve commissioned research to carry out analysis on whether a greater degree of stacking should be permitted between ecosystem service markets. We’ll share the findings, due this summer, with you when they’re available.
Today, we published an update on progress under the Nature Markets Framework on GOV.UK.
The Nature Markets Framework sets out our plans to scale up private investment into nature recovery and sustainable farming.
Our goal is that by 2027, £500 million of private investment must go into nature recovery every year. This target rises to more than £1 billion each year by 2030.
The framework includes the principles guiding the development of nature markets so that they operate with integrity. It also includes clearer rules for how farmers and other land and coastal managers can access markets creating an additional income stream.
In this post, we'll share a short summary of the initiatives supporting our ambitions in this space.
This competitive scheme offers grants of between £10,000 and £100,000. It supports projects to get ‘investment ready’ through the development of models and market-based mechanisms that can produce revenue from ecosystem services to attract and repay private investment into nature projects.
The NEIRF is already supporting the development of 86 projects across England - some of which are already transacting and securing investment.
A third round of NEIRF launched last autumn, specifically targeted at supporting farmers to access nature markets, alongside food production. The bids received in this round are currently being assessed. Awards to successful projects will be made this summer. NEIRF we’ve talked about on the blog. I’ll share a summary of some NEIRF projects.
The systematic drainage of lowland peat for agricultural practices accounts for 2-3% of total UK greenhouse gases. Another environmental challenge in agriculture is food supply chain emissions.
The Lapwing Estate in Nottinghamshire and South Yorkshire received NEIRF funding to ‘Rethink Farmed Peatlands’ by developing business models that abate landscape emissions through growing short rotation coppice willow on peat soils with a raised water table, known as paludiculture.
The willow is harvested and thermally decomposes, through a process called pyrolysis, producing biochar and generating high grade heat and power. The renewable energy will then be used for controlled environment agriculture, a technology-based approach to create optimal growing conditions for food production to offset the farmland being used to grow crops for pyrolysis.
The project has developed a complex and novel business model to generate sustainable energy, enhance food production, and restore degraded peatlands. It has the potential to generate income through several other streams including ecosystem services, balancing the risk of market infancies and regulatory or policy changes.
The business models for different scaled options were explored, scoping out financing opportunities and different income streams with stakeholders.
The project has 3 options to scale up, including to landscape-scale at 35,000 hectares which will be one of the first of its kind in the UK.
Hadrian Bond was conceived as the UK’s first Environmental Impact Bond focused on regenerative agriculture. Through the NEIRF it aimed to channel impact investment to farms which seek to adopt regenerative principles and practices and restore the effectiveness of carbon, water, and mineral cycling in soils and wider ecosystems.
The NEIRF grant was used to:
A Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV), Hadrian Bond Company Ltd was set up to operate a pilot project. HBC sells soil sequestered carbon units to corporates seeking to offset their emissions. Over time, approximately two-thirds of revenues will go directly to farmers and the rest will be used to run the project and repay investors.
Following the pilot, Hadrian Bond aims to expand to 3 further farming clusters in the Midlands, English borders, and Wiltshire, each of around 10,000 hectares at full capacity, with the overall aim to increase the scale of regenerative agriculture in the UK and raise further finance to support farm conversion.
Launched at COP28, Projects for Nature is a platform that connects corporate leaders in sustainability with nature recovery projects, screened by Defra, Natural England and the Environment Agency. The initiative established a partnership with the Council for Sustainable Business, Crowdfunder, and Accenture and leverages corporate donations.
The pilot aims to determine business appetite for such a platform and whether corporate donations can be leveraged towards nature recovery, including projects focused on sustainable agriculture. Our first founding business partner is Lloyds Banking Group. They have committed a total of £250,000 to 3 projects on the platform.
One of the projects funded by Lloyds Banking Group is taking place at Dalehead in the Peak District. The National Trust is working with partners and tenant farmers in the High Peak to manage the land in their care for nature, climate, and people. Together, they are working to establish more trees, healthy peatlands, and thriving wetlands and grasslands. This will help to improve soil health and water quality, create more space for nature, increase resilience in a changing climate, as well increase and provide public access for all to enjoy the shared history of the landscape.
Funding will support the restoration of 2.6km of wetland on a site nestled between the iconic landmarks of Mam Tor and Kinder Scout. It will also enable expansion of the Peak Regenerative Farmers initiative, which includes events, workshops, training and peer-to-peer support to support sustainable businesses that produce quality food alongside nature-friendly farming practices.
This partnership with the British Standards Institution (BSI) will enable us to develop a range of nature investment standards, providing clear rules for what a high integrity nature market unit looks like. This will give farmers more confidence in supplying units and accessing payments from nature markets.
BSI will shortly consult on the first standard of the programme, the Overarching Principles standard.
BSI has engaged with farming stakeholders to inform the development of the programme and this first standard.
The consultation is a vital opportunity for farmers to shape the scope and direction of the next iteration, due later this year. Learn more about the programme and details of the consultation.
Our work to support access to nature markets also includes:
With support from HM Treasury, the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, we’re working towards launching a public consultation in the coming months.
This will test our thinking on what more can be done to support the growth of high-integrity, voluntary carbon and nature markets and to protect against greenwashing.
We want these initiatives to help farmers, landowners, and land managers to feel confident to participate, and people and businesses to feel confident to invest their money in nature through nature markets.
The outputs of the research commissioned into stacking will be available in the summer. This will support the evidence on blending private and public finance and help to inform our understanding of impacts that stacking may have on economic, social, and environmental outcomes.
By supporting private finance for nature's recovery, we can successfully restore it – creating bigger, better, and more joined-up space for nature.
]]>In this post, we’ll give you a summary of the grants to look out for this year.
The information published in this post is correct at the time of publication but please note that blog posts do go out of date. For the definitive, up-to-date list of all farming payments and guidance in England, bookmark Funding for Farmers and Land Managers on GOV.UK. The page contains both our grants and our ongoing payments. It also includes Countryside Stewardship grants and it is updated regularly.
Summary:
Farmers who keep cattle, sheep and pigs can get funding to pay for a vet to visit their farm and carry out a health and welfare review of their livestock. To be eligible to apply, you must have one of the following:
How much you can apply for:
Dates to note:
You can apply now.
Summary:
The grant will fund laying hen and pullet farmers to refurbish or replace (with new) existing laying hen and pullet housing. This will include specific funding to retrofit verandas onto existing buildings. The grant aims to improve poultry health and welfare and support innovation, productivity and environmental sustainability. Funding will also be available for installing rooftop solar panels on funded housing.
How much you can apply for:
To be confirmed. We’ll publish a post as soon as the guidance for this grant is available.
Dates to note:
The online checker (the first step to apply) will open in spring-summer 2024.
Summary:
The grant will fund upgrades to housing for cattle aged 6 months+, to improve cattle health and welfare and support innovation, productivity and environmental sustainability.
How much you can apply for:
To be confirmed. We’ll blog as soon as we publish the guidance for the grant.
Dates to note:
The online checker (the first step to apply) will open in autumn 2024.
Summary:
This grant is offered through the Farming Equipment and Technology Fund (FETF) 2024. It provides smaller value grants towards the cost of a prescribed list of items. This supports the purchase of specific equipment, technology, and small infrastructure investments aimed at making an immediate difference to farm performance, including investments that will help farmers use less inputs, reduce emissions, and cut waste.
How much you can apply for:
You can apply for a grant between £1,000 and £50,000 towards productivity equipment.
Dates to note:
You can apply now. The deadline is 17 April. There are multiple application windows.
Summary:
This grant is offered through the Farming Equipment and Technology Fund (FETF) 2024. It provides smaller value grants towards the cost of a prescribed list of items. These grants will go towards the cost of items on a list which improve the health and welfare of livestock.
How much you can apply for:
You can apply for a grant between £1,000 and £25,000
Dates to note:
We will blog when it is time to apply. There are multiple application windows.
Summary:
This grant is offered through the Farming Equipment and Technology Fund (FETF) 2024. It provides smaller value grants towards the cost of a prescribed list of items to help farmers manage their slurry better and reduce pollution of water and air.
How much you can apply for:
You can apply for a grant between £1,000 and £50,000.
Dates to note:
You can apply now. The deadline to apply is 17 April. There are multiple application windows.
Summary:
This grant is for innovative farming equipment that increases productivity and improves the environment.
How much you can apply for:
£25,00-£500,000 robotic and automated equipment and systems (50% intervention rate)
£15,000-£100,000 solar equipment (25% intervention rate)
£500,000 is the maximum offer.
Dates to note:
You can apply now. The first stage of the application process, the online checker, is now open to make an initial online application. The checker will close for applications at 11:59pm on 21 March 2024.
Summary:
The Slurry Infrastructure grant is designed to help you improve or expand your slurry storage capacity.
How much you can apply for:
Between £25,000 and £250,000.
Dates to note:
The online checker for Round 2 (the first step to apply) closed on 17 January 2024. There will be another opportunity to apply later this year.
Summary:
This grant is for capital items which improve farm productivity through more efficient use of water for irrigation, and to secure water supplies for crops.
How much you can apply for:
Between £35,000 and £500,000.
Dates to note:
For Round 2, the online checker (the first step to apply) closed on 7 July 2023. Those invited to submit a full application will have until the end of October 2024 to submit their application. Round 3 is expected later this year.
Summary:
The grant provides funding for businesses to further develop a new farming product or service towards commercialization. Targeted toward growers and foresters in England to take forward ideas that improve productivity, sustainability, resilience and move the sector towards net zero.
How much you can apply for:
A share of £7.8 million.
Dates to note:
The window to submit an application opened on 15 January 2024 and will close on 13 March 2024.
Summary:
These grants provide funding for businesses and researchers to work on longer-term innovation. This competition will focus on nutrient management.
How much you can apply for:
A share of up to £25 million will be delivered across two competition rounds.
Dates to note:
Spring 2024 and autumn 2024.
Summary:
These grants are focused on providing groups of farmers, growers and foresters in England with support to conduct on-farm experiments and trials. This will allow farmers to drive practical research that is relevant to them as well as providing “pull-through” of new technologies and processes to the practical domain. The funding and support available through ADOPT funding will help de-risk farmers’ participation in research and innovation.
How much you can apply for:
There will be a total of £45 million grant funding available up until 2028/29.
Dates to note:
Coming in summer 2024.
Summary:
This grant is designed to help businesses to develop a new farming product or service and take it towards commercialisation. This can be used to develop a solution once it works in practice.
How much you can apply for:
A share of £7.8 million.
Dates to note:
Coming in autumn 2024.
Summary:
This grant provides funding to test the feasibility of early-stage solutions and to inform decisions on subsequent larger scale R&D projects.
How much you can apply for:
A share of up to £4.8 million.
Dates to note:
Coming in autumn 2024.
Summary:
These grants provide funding for businesses and researchers to work on longer-term innovation. This particular competition will focus on ‘net zero farming’.
How much you can apply for:
A share of up to £12.5 million.
Dates to note:
Coming in autumn 2024.
]]>We’re committed to ensuring that the policies underpinning our environmental land management schemes are based on the very latest and best possible evidence.
By using quality evidence, we can deliver value for money, meet our environmental targets & climate commitments, maintain food production and support resilient rural communities.
Bringing together the latest scientific literature and practitioner data is vital.
One evidence source is the recently published qualitative environmental impact assessment (QEIA). In this post I’ll give an overview.
The purpose of the QEIA was to understand the impact of environmental land management actions on agricultural land in England.
This project assessed the impacts of 741 potential land management actions on land-based environmental targets and climate commitments.
We used 53 relevant environmental and cultural service indicators, such as reduced emissions of ammonia.
The project, led by the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (UKCEH) drew on the expertise of a consortium of around 45 people.
Together, they produced 10 evidence reviews containing over 1,000 pages of evidence and over 2,400 studies were referenced.
These reviews covered important environmental themes such as soil health and air quality and looked at a range of topics, including whether an action should be spatially targeted to deliver benefits to the objectives.
The evidence reviews then informed an integrated assessment. This comprised expert-derived qualitative impact scores for each land management action.
This assessment was important to:
The QEIA sits within a wider evidence base from which we’ve drawn scheme content.
This includes (but is not limited to): agri-environment schemes, monitoring and evaluation projects; Countryside Stewardship (CS) and Environmental Stewardship (ES) impact assessments and feasibility studies.
Together, this evidence helps to build a picture of which actions should be considered for our environmental land management schemes.
The QEIA also sits within the context of some of the longer-term work underway to inform our schemes.
The Environmental Valuation Assessment Scenario Tool (EVAST) is one such project. EVAST is a Defra-funded integrated modelling tool that is under development (with the first stage still due for completion) by a UKCEH-led consortium including Forest Research, eftec, ADAS, Cranfield University and the British Trust for Ornithology.
It is an ambitious undertaking that uses a specialised chain of coupled models driven by field-level data and covering a national scale.
EVAST estimates the biodiversity, carbon, water quality and air quality benefits, and their associated monetary values that could be achieved through environmental land management schemes.
Designed to support our decision making, the EVAST approach is deliberately cross-sectoral and scenario-driven. It highlights interactions, trade-offs and unintended consequences of land management decisions.
Each EVAST scenario is co-developed with Defra and helps to build a picture of the different ways environmental land management can contribute to England’s land-based environmental targets and climate commitments.
While we have an active programme of research to make predictions to inform scheme content, we are also building a programme by which to monitor and evaluate them.
In early-stage development, and as part of a multi-year programme, the Environmental Research Collaboration for England (ERCE) is an important project in this space.
It will develop innovative, proof-of-concept solutions to challenges in monitoring our environment, with a focus on accelerating integration of new technologies into Defra business processes.
ERCE will also help us explore and assess which tools are best placed to support our land managers in delivering environmental outcomes. The monitoring and evaluation programme will provide real-world data to complement and validate our early assessments.
If you have any questions about this work, please leave a comment below.
]]>On Thursday 29 February, we held a webinar for arable and field horticulture growers in England.
In the session, we covered the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI), Countryside Stewardship (CS), the Improving Farm Productivity (IFP) grant and the Farming Equipment and Technology Fund 2024.
We explained how SFI supports both productivity and the environment and went through the wide range of actions including for soils, nutrient management and integrated pest management.
In this post, I’ll summarise the themes that emerged in the questions and I’ll set out the best ways for you to get answers as quickly as possible.
Don’t delay, apply today!
Over 13,000 farmers have already applied for an SFI agreement. You can apply for an SFI agreement now and choose from the 23 actions currently on offer.
If you apply now, you'll be able to add actions to your agreement annually - or have an additional SFI agreement on the same parcel of land, as long as the agreements don’t pay twice for the same action.
Good news! We announced we are doubling the SFI management payment so those with existing SFI agreements receive up to an extra £1,000 this spring, and we are extending it to Countryside Stewardship Mid tier for the first year of agreements starting by March 2025.
It will apply to all SFI agreement holders with an agreement live on 1 January 2024, starting from the first day of their agreement, and to all new entrants into SFI from now on, including the expanded offer this summer. We are prioritising increasing the payment in the first year, because this is when costs are highest for farmers.
In the first year, it will pay £40 per hectare for up to the first 50 hectares entered into an eligible agreement and £20/ha for the first 50 hectares for years 2 and 3. It is an annual payment paid each year of the agreement. The annual payment is divided into 4 equal instalments and paid on a quarterly basis. The first quarterly instalment will usually be made in the fourth month after the start date of your SFI agreement. You don’t have to do anything to receive the payment, it will be paid automatically. The RPA will be in touch with agreement holders soon to confirm when you will receive the payment.
This payment comes alongside other improvements to SFI, including: a 10% increase in the average value of agreements in SFI and CS Mid Tier; 50 new actions farmers can get paid for; and a single streamlined application process.
It’s possible to be in SFI and Countryside Stewardship at the same time if the actions are compatible and you are not being paid for the same action twice.
Those already in SFI will be able to add more actions and land to their agreement on the anniversary of their agreement start date. To do this, you submit an ‘upgrade request’ towards the end of the first and second years of your 3-year SFI agreement. More details of how to do this, can be found in the SFI handbook under section 5.1.3 Requesting changes to your SFI agreement.
If you choose a rotational SFI action, you’ll tell us the area and location of that action for the first year of your SFI agreement in your application. It will be possible for you to vary the coverage of rotational actions, so they work with your crop rotation and different sizes of land parcels. This means that in the second and third years of your agreement, you’ll be able to do the action on:
The RPA will let you know how to tell them about a change to the area and location of rotational actions for the second and third agreement years.
Something that was also asked was how to cross-reference land-use and areas. The best way to do this would be to login into RPA twice on two separate windows or tabs, and have them open at the same time to make it easier to cross reference between the two.
Find out how SFI can work for you.
We’re streamlining the way we present our offer. We currently have separate SFI and CS Mid and Higher Tier schemes offering different types of actions and agreements.
We will open the combined offer, containing the actions previously available through CS Mid Tier and SFI, at scale by July 2024 – this means most farmers will be able to apply online by July and start their agreements by the autumn.
We will publish the details of the 2024 SFI offer by May, so that farmers can plan ahead. This will include full details of the actions, prices, and rules for combining different actions on the same land.
We will open for applications in time for the agreement to start next January, as usual, but we will be accepting applications through a rolling window – we will confirm the timings and process for this shortly.
When we have more information on moving from an ES/HLS agreement into SFI, we will share that information here on the blog, and RPA will get in contact with agreement holders. An ES/HLS agreement holder can have an SFI agreement, as long as options don't overlap and there is no dual funding.
Learn more about the combined offer.
A few questions were asked about the capital grants offer in the webinar. Capital grants are 3-year agreements offering capital items to achieve specific environmental benefits within 4 groups:
There is no limit on either the maximum amount for any application or the amount you can apply for in each of the 4 groups. You can select multiple items from the 4 different groups.
You can check if you are eligible to apply for a capital grant. Some of you asked if you could still apply for capital items if you were already in an existing CS Mid-Tier or Higher Tier agreements. The answer is yes, if all capital works on that parcel in your CS Mid Tier or Higher Tier agreement have been fully completed and paid for, then you just need to make sure that:
The good news is you can submit a capital claim at any time of the year once the work is completed. You just need to have been charged/invoiced for the items by your supplier. The RPA aim to pay valid claims within 2 months of receiving them.
Learn more about capital grants
The Farming Equipment and Technology Fund also provides grants for equipment and technology that support improvements in:
You can apply for one grant from each of the 3 themes.
The fund is competitive. The Rural Payments Agency (RPA) will allocate funding after all applications within an application window have been received and scored. You may not receive any, or all of the funding you apply for.
Successful applicants will receive a grant of:
We will pay a percentage of the cost depending on the item. For many items, this percentage is an increase on last year. This funding will go towards either:
Our team will host a webinar on 12 March 2024. You will be able to put your questions to policy leads during this session. Register to attend the webinar.
Apply for the Farming Equipment and Technology Fund 2024
With improved choice and payment rates, now is the time to apply for SFI. For more information visit our dedicated SFI site which sets out the full offer, and you can watch RPA’s how to apply for SFI video.
There’s now a tool for you to check what SFI actions you can get paid to do on your land. Just select your land type in the SFI filter tool for a list of compatible actions in SFI23. It doesn’t commit you to anything, it’s free, and you can print the results.
To help you manage the transition and plan, you can get free advice from an independent provider. If you have a query about SFI, you can contact the RPA.
You can also access free advice through an independent provider if you receive BPS.
The guidance for every scheme and grant on offer can be found on the Funding for farmers, growers and land managers page on GOV.UK.
]]>I am pleased to say you can now apply for a productivity and slurry management grant through the Farming Equipment and Technology Fund (FETF) 2024.
Last month, I blogged about the FETF and improvements we've made. I also included a link to the official FETF 2024 guidance. We recently made an update to it, so please note that the online guidance on GOV.UK is the very latest guidance.
In this post, I’ll set out the process to apply and how you can learn more.
The FETF provides grants for farming equipment and technology that supports improvements in productivity, slurry management and animal health and welfare.
Grants for productivity and slurry management items are available now. The deadline to apply is midday 17 April 2024.
Grants for animal health and welfare items will be available later this month.
Farmers, foresters, growers and contractors to those sectors can apply.
You can apply for one grant from each of the 3 themes. The fund is competitive.
Successful applicants will receive a grant of:
We will pay a percentage of the cost depending on the item. For many items, this percentage is an increase on last year. This funding will go towards either:
You’ll receive an acknowledgement email within 24 hours of applying – you may need to check your junk folder for emails about your application.
The Rural Payments Agency (RPA) will allocate funding once all the applications have been received and scored. You may not receive any, or all of the funding you apply for.
If your application is successful, the RPA will send you a Grant Funding Agreement (GFA). GFAs for each grant will be sent separately. If your application is unsuccessful, the RPA will write to you to tell you why.
Use the Farming Investment Fund service to accept your GFA by the deadline which will be in the email. You’ll need to select each grant to accept each GFA.
We've set out the steps you’ll need to follow to claim your FETF 2024 grant payment on GOV.UK.
We expect to open 2 more productivity and slurry application windows later this year.
The first application window for animal health and welfare items will open later this month, we will post again when it is time to apply.
The item specifications and their costs are the same in each application window. The total overall budget for each grant is split evenly across the application windows.
If your application falls below the scoring threshold and is unsuccessful, the RPA will reject it. You will be able to apply again in a different window.
If you've accepted a grant funding agreement (GFA) to buy items from a grant, you cannot apply again for the same grant in 2024.
Our team hosted a webinar covering the grants available on 12 March 2024.
Applications for the animal health and welfare grants will open soon. Subscribe to the blog to receive a reminder on the day.
]]>Hedgerows are a vital part of our countryside. They benefit our wildlife, the environment and our landscapes.
Hedgerows play an important role in farming. They slow soil erosion and support an integrated pest management approach.
We know that our farmers and land managers value hedgerows. In England, there are now over 90,000 kilometres of hedgerows with one or both sides managed under 16,000 Countryside Stewardship and SFI agreements. Through Countryside Stewardship capital grants, over 13,000 kilometres of hedgerows have been created or restored.
In June last year, we launched a consultation on how hedgerows should be protected in England. We blogged about it at the time.
Today, we published the summary of the responses and the government's response on GOV.UK. This includes proposed exemptions to the requirements.
In this post, we'll share the outcomes of the consultation and our next steps.
As mentioned, the consultation launched in June. By the time the consultation closed in September, almost 9,000 people shared their views. This substantial response again highlights how much hedgerows are valued by all, including farmers and land managers.
We would like to thank all of those who took the time to respond.
There was overwhelming agreement that hedgerows are valuable assets for wildlife and the environment.
Responses to the consultation clearly supported protections. In total, 96% of responses agreed with the proposal to maintain a buffer strip.
98% agreed with the proposal to maintain a cutting ban period. Farmers were firmly supportive, with 82% agreeing to a buffer strip and 85% to a cutting ban period.
We also appreciate views on extending protections outside of agricultural land in the future.
There was consensus that hedges should be protected in law. This is what the government seeks to do through new regulations.
We trust farmers and land managers to look after hedgerows and the proposed regulations will provide the reassurance that everyone follows the same management approach.
Alongside the continuation of our hedgerow offers in our environmental land management schemes, the new regulations reinforce our commitment to protect hedgerows and support those who look after them.
The proposed regulations will replicate the approach already familiar to most farmers from the previous cross compliance rules.
As before, they will require a 2-metre buffer strip measured from the centre of the hedge, where no cultivation or application of pesticides or fertilisers must happen.
This is to prevent harm to the structure and health of the hedge. The new regulations will also follow the cross compliance approach and ban the cutting of hedges between 1 March and 31 August, protecting nesting birds during that period.
While the rules themselves will be familiar to farmers, the approach to enforcement of the proposed new regulation will be different, with a focus on being fair and proportionate.
We have learned lessons from previous approaches and believe an advice-led approach will result in the best outcomes. We want to hear your views on the enforcement approach.
We will talk to farmers and environmental organisations about this, as well as consulting formally as required in the legislation.
We are working hard to bring in the new regulation as soon as parliamentary time allows. We'll provide more information in due course.
]]>With a population of just over 6,000, spread across 303 square kilometres, the Broads, located in Norfolk and Suffolk, is among the smaller National Parks.
The landscape is characterised by shallow lakes formed from peat digging in medieval times, seven rivers and more than 125 miles of navigable waterways. This flat and wet environment creates a haven for over a quarter of Britain’s rarest species, including the Norfolk hawker dragonfly and fen raft spider.
The Broads has a long history of land drainage for the purpose of livestock grazing and arable cropping.
The fertile loamy, clay and peat soils are susceptible to overstocking and compaction, which leads to nutrients leaching into the surrounding watercourses.
Agricultural intensification has seen a corresponding decline in the ecological value of Broadland habitats, especially flower-rich fen meadows and traditional washlands (land adjacent to rivers).
The River Waveney catchment has particularly suffered from over-enrichment of nutrients, which has caused eutrophication and harmed the surrounding ecosystem and biodiversity.
To address these issues the River Waveney Trust took on the facilitation of the Waveney Farming Cluster aiming to improve water quality, water availability and habitat connectivity throughout the catchment.
Facilitated by the Trust’s Catchment Officer, the farming cluster has grown from 12 farms, to over 40 landowners across 11,000 hectares.
In 2021, the cluster group applied for a grant through the Farming in Protected Landscapes programme (FiPL) to help improve their nutrient use efficiency and, as a result, the surrounding aquatic environment. With a PhD in lowland fisheries and previous project management experience, the farming cluster facilitator Emily Winter was well-skilled to lead this work.
The project aimed to establish a nutrient usage baseline, provide training on how different farming practices affect nutrient losses, and conduct innovative trials amongst members.
The Broads Authority FiPL Officer, Hannah Norman, provided advice on the proposed activities, ensuring that all consents, agreements, and quotes were in place prior to the application being presented to the Local Assessment Panel (LAP) for consideration.
Like all LAPs, our LAP is comprised of local farmers, representatives from local environmental non-governmental organisations (ENGOs) and government organisations. The panellists approved the project, welcoming an application that involved a wide group of farmers and land managers collaborating to improve water quality.
The first year of FiPL funding enabled the cluster to purchase soil and water sampling tools, chlorophyll monitoring equipment, as well as officer time to undertake the testing. The testing methodology was developed with professional advice from the University of East Anglia, Anglian Water, technicians at Essex & Suffolk Water, and the Rivers Trust.
Chlorophyll monitoring, measured the plant mineral status of the crops. This provided farmers with specialist recommendations for reduced or variable-rate fertiliser application – where in-field fertiliser is optimised depending on crop requirements.
Initial water sampling found that heavy rain was resulting in large nitrate concentrations in land drains, from soil leaching. The financial cost of this was approximately 30 pence per hectare per day in February 2022. Framing the runoff issue as a financial issue helped motivate the farmers to improve nutrient use efficiency.
Alongside the practical analysis, the cluster also received specialist advice on the impact of their practices on soil compaction from Phillip Wright of Wright Resolutions, and how this effects nutrient uptake and efficiency.
The LAP approved funding for a second year, whilst encouraging the group to pursue broader goals. Funding contributed to further officer time, soil organic matter tests, and grain analysis. Grain analysis provided insight into crop mineral content. As this has implications for crop nitrogen uptake, it allowed the farmers to further optimise nutrient applications.
Farmers also put in place measures to improve nutrient use efficiency in their test fields. Land management practices, including cover crops, variable-rate fertiliser application, reducing cultivations, and the earlier sowing of winter cereals were also trialled. The results highlighted that sowing cover crops before spring barley particularly helped to lower nitrate loss.
Alongside the practical measures, the cluster continued to receive external advice to enhance their understanding of agricultural drainage systems. Norfolk Rivers Trust delivered a talk on the benefit of leaky dams, and how they can ‘slow the flow’ of water, leading to sediment settling and enhanced water quality.
The cluster facilitator found that this specialist advice, in conjunction with the results from the monitoring, inspired action at the farm level. Testing offered new insights, allowing the farmers to use manure more efficiently on their land. Continued testing helped farmers feel confident in maintaining reduced fertiliser rates, as it revealed the real-time progress towards improving nutrients use efficiency.
Testing results showed average fertiliser use efficiency was 92% across all arable fields monitored in 2022. This suggests that nearly all fertiliser inputs were productively taken up by the crops. With experts advising farmers to aim for 70-80% efficiency, it showed that the recommended fertiliser rates from the specialist equipment were successful in improving nutrient use efficiency.
Overall, savings in the test fields totalled around 2.5 tonnes of nitrogen, or 7.5 tonnes of Ammonium Nitrate fertiliser, equating to a reduction in equivalent CO2 emissions of approximately 24 tonnes. This has enhanced the aquatic habitat of the Waveney Valley, with levels of phosphate in field drains shown to be above ecologically accepted standards.
By reducing fertiliser use without compromising yield, the financial sustainability of the farm businesses increased. The farmers and land managers now have a greater understanding of how changes to land management practices can help to both reduce pollution and improve their input costs.
After 2 years of FiPL funding, the cluster group were keen to continue building on the success of this project and were encouraged to look for alternative funding sources to sustain the project.
The project is currently set to continue for the 2024/25 agricultural calendar through funding from the Landscape Enterprise Network.
Our LAP has continued to support the cluster – organising for Nick Padwick from Wild Ken Hill to give a talk on their fertiliser-free farming model.
I'll include links below for you to learn more.
]]>On Wednesday 27 March, we’re holding a webinar for upland farmers to learn more about the funding opportunities available in England in 2024.
The webinar will focus on the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) Policy leads from these areas, colleagues from the Rural Payments Agency (RPA) and a farmer already in SFI, will be there to answer your questions.
To attend the 1-hour session, reserve a place on Eventbrite.
Once you register, you can ask and upvote questions on Slido. You’ll be able to do this during the webinar too.
It will be recorded so if you can’t attend, don’t worry. The video recording will be added to this post after the webinar ends.
To prepare, you might find it helpful to read: New and improved actions for upland farmers.
We’re rewarding farmers for farming practices that help produce food sustainably and protect the environment, through the SFI.
It's open for applications today. Join more than 12,500 farmers who have already submitted an application.
Apply now and you’ll receive your first payment 4 months after your SFI agreement starts. After that you’ll be paid every 3 months, so you have regular, reliable income.
You can add actions to your agreement annually - or take out an additional agreement when further actions become available.
There are 23 actions on offer. You can now check what SFI actions you can get paid to do on your land type.
If you wait for the new actions coming in summer, you could lose out on funding.
]]>On Thursday 14 March, we’re holding a webinar for livestock and grassland farmers to learn more about the funding opportunities available in England in 2024.
The webinar will focus on the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) and the Animal Health and Welfare Pathway. Policy leads from these areas, colleagues from the Rural Payments Agency (RPA) and a farmer already in SFI, will be there to answer your questions.
To attend the 1-hour session, reserve a place on Eventbrite.
Once you register, you can ask and upvote questions on Slido. You’ll be able to do this during the webinar too.
It will be recorded so if you can’t attend, don’t worry. The video recording will be added to this post after the webinar ends.
To prepare, you might find it helpful to read our recent post, Spotlight on updates and additions to livestock and grassland offer.
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