As outlined in the Chancellor’s announcement, we have secured a budget of £2.4 billion for the next financial year. This means we can maintain the momentum of our environmental land management (ELM) schemes, which will rise to the highest funding levels ever by 2025/26.
We’re inviting farmers, growers, foresters, businesses and researchers to apply for a share of £12.5 million to focus on the research and development of sustainable farm-based proteins.
In the latest video in the series about the North Cumbria Farmers Group Test and Trial, uplands livestock farmers Steve and Colin explain their reasons for taking part.
The Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) is now open for applications via the Rural Payments service. Through the SFI, farmers will be paid for looking after the natural environment in the course of their farming. This initial offer will pay farmers for taking care of their soil or assessing the condition of moorland. In this post, we'll share more about the application process.
In this post, we'll share a summary of the second meeting of the UK Agriculture Partnership (UKAP). It was held at the College of Agriculture, Food and Rural Enterprise in Northern Ireland. The topic of the meeting was soil health.
The Fertiliser Taskforce is made up of representatives from industry bodies and the UK's devolved administrations. The taskforce addresses the impact of global supply pressures on farming. It seeks to improve market confidence and help provide farmers with the information they need to make business decisions on fertiliser use. The second meeting of the Fertiliser Taskforce was chaired by Minister Churchill. In this post, I’ll share a summary of the meeting.
Following publication of the Adding Value manual on 23 May, the online checker is now open for you to apply. This £30 million fund offers grants focused on supporting farmers and growers to process, diversify and add value to their eligible agricultural products after they are harvested or reared. It offers grants of between £25,000 and £300,000 for up to 40% of eligible project costs.
Today we’re announcing more details about the new slurry storage grants that we will be launching later this year, as part of the Farming Investment Fund. This post gives extra context to the information published today on GOV.UK. We explain what the new grant offers, how to apply and what to look out for over the coming months.
The government has committed to maintain the farming budget for England at £2.4 billion per year throughout this parliament. We will be gradually reducing spending on Basic Payments each year over the next 6 years. Instead, we will make the money available to farmers through one-off grants for capital investment in equipment and technology, and ongoing payments for environmental actions and related advice and support. Farmers will be able to get paid for a combination of actions that they choose, to suit their farm business, food production and the environment.
It's hard to get started in farming, or any related land-based business. Newcomers to the industry (usually known as "new entrants") face all sorts of barriers. It's challenging for them to find land, secure finance and progress their businesses. When we published the Agricultural Transition Plan towards the end of 2020, we said that we would establish a support scheme for new entrants, and make the whole process easier. This blog post is an update on what we've learned so far by working collaboratively with people across the sector and the next steps.
Local Nature Recovery is the improved and more ambitious successor to the Countryside Stewardship scheme in England. In this post, we’ll provide further detail on what Local Nature Recovery will pay for and explain how we will be working with you over the course of the year to develop the detailed scheme design.
On 9-10 January we’re at the Oxford Farming Conference and the Oxford Real Farming Conference.
Come and say hello to our team.
On Friday 10 January, we’re holding a Farming Roadmap roundtable at the ORFC, which delegates are welcome to attend.
You can also find us at these agricultural shows and conferences in 2025.
