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Agri-environment schemes work: Natural England’s latest findings

Posted by: , Posted on: - Categories: environmental land management schemes, Farming and Countryside Programme
Chalk downland with common spotted orchid and rough hawkbit in foregrouns

This month, Natural England published its annual report summarising projects of the Agri-Environment Scheme Monitoring & Evaluation Programme. In this guest post, Natural England’s Usha Waygood, Senior Officer in the Evidence Directorate, highlights some of the team’s findings from the report.

Webinar follow up: livestock and grassland

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.

From application to agreement: making the process to join SFI simple

Posted by: , Posted on: - Categories: Sustainable Farming Incentive
Interior shot of Mac screen in a kitchen, with SFI apply page displayed

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.

The evidence we use to develop our environmental land management schemes 

Posted by: , Posted on: - Categories: environmental land management schemes
A patchwork of fields including sheep and cows taken in the Cotswolds, Gloucestershire.

We’re committed to ensuring that the policies underpinning our environmental land management schemes are based on the very latest and best possible evidence. One evidence source is the recently published qualitative environmental impact assessment (QEIA). In this post I’ll give an overview.  

The SFI pilot: designing the improved offer with farmers 

Posted by: , Posted on: - Categories: Sustainable Farming Incentive pilot
SFI pilot farmers discuss their work at a workshop

Since 2021, over 800 farmers in England have been testing an early version of the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI), delivering 10,000 actions on their land. In this post, I’ll explain how farmers in the pilot have helped us to shape the current and future offer. I'll also include a video which gives an overview of our work.

Watch: webinar on the farming offer in 2024

On Friday 26 January, we held a webinar for farmers. During the session, we went through the actions and payments available through our environmental land management schemes in 2024. This post includes a link to the recording.

Supporting the tenanted sector in England

Posted by: , Posted on: - Categories: Farming and Countryside Programme

Tenant farmers are at the heart of the rural economy, managing a third of all farmland in England. To meet our food security and environmental objectives, we must make sure that all farmers, including tenant farmers, can access our schemes and build thriving farm businesses. In this post, we’ll explain how we are continuing to design our schemes with tenant farmers in mind. We’ll provide an update on how we are embedding an understanding of the tenanted sector across Defra. We’ll also summarise the progress we’ve made so far.