The Farming and Countryside Programme’s annual report is out, highlighting how funding has helped farmers, foresters, and land managers support nature, sustainable food, and innovation. In addition to this, guidance for Countryside Stewardship Higher Tier applications is available, with the online service opening next week for invited applicants who have completed pre-application advice.
In September, the new Countryside Stewardship Higher Tier (CSHT) service will open for applications to those who have been invited to apply, have received pre-application advice and have completed any preparatory work.
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.
We've launched a call for evidence to better understand how we can support and incentivise business to invest in nature recovery.
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.
A new £5 million round of the Farming Innovation Investor Partnerships competition will open on 2 June. Guidance is now available. The competition supports agri-tech businesses to fast-track the late-stage development and commercialisation of technologies that are close to market. It offers government funding alongside private investment.
Cholderton is a 1000-hectare estate on the Hampshire/Wiltshire border. It participated in one of Defra's environmental land management test and trials to develop a model land management plan based on the exemplary principles adopted by the estate. In this guest post, Merrick Denton-Thompson shares his view.
At the start of this year I posted about what we had in store for the year. This post is about how we’re getting on and what’s coming next.
In this post I’ll provide a summary of what will be on offer through the Sustainable Farming Incentive scheme and what we’re doing ahead of opening the scheme up to farmers next year.
