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.
In November, we started to offer agreements to farmers taking part in the Sustainable Farming Incentive pilot. In this post, we'll share an overview of the things we’ve learned over the past 6 months and how we’re incorporating them into the design of the full scheme.
As a farmer, I am only too aware of the financial pressures which force farmers to make short-term decisions to address an immediate need. This isn’t always ideal for the environment and the sustainability of farming in the longer term. The marketplace is very good at driving the efficient production of high-quality grain, meat, milk and vegetables for today and tomorrow, but less so at rewarding high water quality, great soil or increasing the numbers of birds and insects over time. In this post, I’ll explain how the Sustainable Farming Incentive will start to redress the balance and how it will reward farmers for delivering environmental benefits as well as efficient food production.
The Farming Innovation Programme provides research and development funding to farmers and growers who want to develop and use new, innovative methods and technologies. The aim of the fund is to support farmers to become more productive, environmentally sustainable and resilient to the global food security challenges of the future. You might remember that alongside UK Research & Innovation (UKRI) we launched the first rounds of funding in October, and 2 more in March. In this post, I’ll share information about our latest funding opportunity: the Research Starter Projects Competition.
Before we launched Improving Farm Productivity in January, we made the manual available for people to look at on GOV.UK. Feedback suggested you found this helpful. So, ahead of its launch in June, we are making the manual for the next theme available today: Adding Value. In June, you can apply for a grant for buildings, machinery or equipment so that producers can add value to eligible agricultural products after they are harvested or reared.
In this post, I'll provide an update on the work of the fertiliser roundtable, which recently held its first meeting. I’ll also share some analysis on the impact of varying fertiliser application rates to help reduce costs.
Rose Nankervis manages Wicca Farm on the north coast of Cornwall. In this video, Rose explains why she decided to take part in the Sustainable Farming Incentive pilot.
We're bringing BPS payments forward. Farmers with eligible applications will receive half of their payment from the end of July, and the rest from December.
The Tree Health Pilot has been live for 8 months. In this post, we share what we've learned so far and include an invitation to owners of sweet chestnut trees and oak trees.
The Tenancy Working Group exists to ensure that new environmental land management schemes work for tenant farmers. The group is very keen to hear directly from tenant farmers and it has developed a survey to gather views.
Even though agricultural policy in the UK is devolved, each country in the union can benefit by working together. The UK Agriculture Partnership is a forum which meets to share technical information on common challenges. The subject of our first meeting was water quality. Our aim was to understand the nature and scale of the challenges, and how we could address them together. In this post, we share some insights from our first meeting and a link to a video of the event.
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.
