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 this post, we share 3 videos from Velcourt 2024 featuring Farming and Countryside Programme Director Janet Hughes. The videos include an update on the agricultural transition, the latest on the farming offer in England and questions from the attendees.
On Thursday 29 February, we held a webinar for arable and field horticulture growers in England. In this post, we share the recording to the webinar.
The Farming Equipment and Technology Fund (FETF) 2024 includes 3 grants to help you buy items to improve productivity, manage slurry and improve animal health and welfare. Today, we published the grant guidance on GOV.UK. In this post, I’ll give an overview, include links and share details of an upcoming webinar on 12 March for you to learn more.
On Thursday 8 February, we held a webinar for tenant farmers. This post includes a recording of the session and a summary of the themes discussed: from monitoring the impact of SFI on the tenanted sector to the combined offer.
Farmers and land managers participating in Weald to Waves share their experiences of taking part in tests and trials. The test is part of a wider project, led by Knepp Estate, which aims to build a wildlife corridor stretching from Ashdown Forest to the Sussex coast. Along the way, they share with us how they brought together farmers on the route to develop group agreements, management plans and funding mechanisms for the corridor.
Over the past few weeks, we've summarised the updates to our environmental land management offer by farm type. These posts follow last month's Agricultural Transition Plan update. In this post, we’ll focus on the updated offer for livestock and grassland farmers.
Landscape Recovery supports large-scale, long-term management of land for the benefit of sustainable food production and the environment. Many of the 22 projects in Round 1 are now halfway through the Project Development Phase (PDP). Our ability to co-design this scheme is founded on open and honest relationships with project teams. In this post, we share a summary of the work to develop long-term agreements.
On Friday 26 January, we held a webinar for farmers to go through the actions and payments available through our environmental land management schemes in 2024. This webinar was held in collaboration with the Farming Advice Service (FAS) and The Farming Forum (TFF). In this post, I’ll summarise the themes and top-voted questions covered in the webinar with responses and links to guidance.
In this episode of the Defra Farming podcast, regional engagement lead Michael Sturla talks to Robin and Christopher Milton. The father and son team farm beef and sheep on the Exmoor uplands and have a Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) agreement. They describe their experience applying for an agreement, the actions they're undertaking and the benefits.
Since launching in 2021, the Farming in Protected Landscapes programme has funded 3,000 projects across England. Together, these projects have created and improved more than 70,000 hectares (ha) of habitat for biodiversity, planted more than 100 miles of hedgerow, more than 100,000 trees and conserved or enhanced 300 historic features, buildings and structures. In this post I'll shine a light on the 3,000th project and share details of an upcoming spotlight series.
On 27 and 28 November, you can come and put your questions to us at the CropTec in Stoneleigh.
Find us at these shows and conferences.
