The Capital Grants offer is now open for new applications. This new round will make £150 million of funding available to farmers, land managers and rural businesses for practical environmental improvements across England.
Following the Spending Review, Defra has secured a multi-year funding commitment from HM Treasury. More than £2.7 billion a year will be invested in sustainable farming and nature recovery from 2026 to 2029. Funding for the Environmental Land Management Schemes paid to farmers will increase by 150% over this time period.
To bring HLS payment rates closer to those offered under CSHT and SFI, we’re investing £30 million to increase payments for most HLS options. The rates are now on GOV.UK.
Nature markets allow individuals and businesses to pay for the benefits that nature provides, often supporting environmental conservation and restoration efforts. A new standard aims to bring clarity and confidence to nature markets.
Following the temporary closure of the Capital Grants scheme in November 2024, we’re pleased to share that we’ve secured sufficient funding for Capital Grants for 2025/26. This means we can now process the 4,040 completed Capital Grants applications that were on hold.
Earlier this month, we hosted a webinar for farmers and land managers in England to learn more about Countryside Stewardship Higher Tier (CSHT) and the pre-application process. In this post, you’ll find a recording of the webinar and a summary of the information in the session, reflecting the questions put to the team.
Ahead of the improved Countryside Stewardship Higher Tier (CSHT) scheme opening for applications, we’ve published the new scheme guidance on GOV.UK. In this post, we share a summary and a recording of a webinar held on 8 January.
As a result of unprecedented demand, some of the capital grant offers for farmers has temporarily closed to new applications. In this post, we summarise the changes to capital grants.
It's been a while since our last post. We’re glad to be back! Over the past month, we've been welcoming Defra's new ministerial team, who are fully committed to environmental land management schemes. We've been working with them to optimise our schemes and grants for farmers, food security and nature recovery. In this post, we’ll update you on the SFI rollout, provide links to new supplementary scheme guidance and share details on endorsed actions and capital items.
Today, we updated the data showing the uptake of actions in Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) and the uptake of options in Countryside Stewardship (CS) and Environmental Stewardship (CS). In this post, I’ll share an overview of the data for the Sustainable Farming Offer in 2023. I’ll also include some findings from research we conducted with around 500 SFI agreement holders, advisers and stakeholders.
On 31 July, we’ll be at the Launceston Show in Cornwall.
Come and say hello to our team.
You can find us at these agricultural shows and conferences in 2025.
The Farming Advice Service (FAS) provides free, confidential advice to farmers and advisers.
Catchment Sensitive Farming (CSF) helps farmers in England protect water, air and soil. CSF advisers can provide advice on best practices and specific actions that will benefit your farm business and the environment.
We’ve compiled a list of organisations offering wellbeing support to those in the farming community.
