Introduction
This scheme manual has been developed for Countryside Stewardship Facilitation Fund agreements that will start on 1 June 2022.
We will continue to offer Countryside Stewardship agreements in 2022, 2023 and 2024.
Countryside Stewardship will eventually be replaced by environmental land management schemes that reward the delivery of environmental benefits. These schemes include the Sustainable Farming Incentive, the Local Nature Recovery Scheme, and the Landscape Recovery Scheme. The Sustainable Farming Incentive will be available to all eligible farmers from 2022. All other environmental land management schemes will become available from 2024.
The Countryside Stewardship Facilitation Fund is administered by the Rural Payments Agency (RPA) on behalf of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra). Natural England provides technical advice in support of the scheme. The Forestry Commission and Environment Agency provide technical advice as part of the application process.
This manual explains what you need to do to apply for Countryside Stewardship Facilitation Fund agreement
It also explains the additional requirements and processes you must follow.
Any references in this manual to ‘us’ or ‘we’, refer to RPA.
A Countryside Stewardship Facilitation Fund agreement comprises of:
- the scheme Terms and Conditions
- the agreement documents (which sets out Facilitator specific details)
- supplementary documents referred to in the Agreement Document.
The Terms and Conditions refer to the mandatory elements of this manual that Facilitator’s must comply with.
The Facilitation Fund was established in 2015 and has exceeded expectations, setting up 136 groups with 3,800 members of farmers and land managers, developing their knowledge and skills to improve nature restoration in their local areas. Monitoring and evaluation studies have found that by coordinating action and working together, groups have achieved greater environmental benefits than would be the case from individual actions alone.
The success of the scheme in bringing people together is widely recognised in Defra and is a key part of proposals for the new Local Nature Recovery scheme.
The idea for successful collaboration is:
- to provide land managers with a local support network, to encourage long term engagement with positive environmental results
- to facilitate learning together with expertise and best practice amongst land managers and stakeholders, being achieved through the sharing of information and skills, and through the delivery of external training
- to plan and deliver shared actions or projects together that achieve higher quality environmental results across multiple holdings.
Countryside Stewardship supports Defra’s objective of ‘a cleaner, healthier environment, benefitting people and the economy. It also supports Defra’s 25-year environment plan ‘for our country to be the healthiest, most beautiful place in the world to live, work and bring up a family.
CS Facilitation Fund groups will support the 25-year environment plan through delivery of the CS Priorities identified in the statement of priorities on their land, with a focus on, but not limited to:
- air quality (by reducing the emission of damaging air pollutants such as ammonia)
- increasing biodiversity
- advice to manage beaver activity on sites where they are already present
- water management
Addressing air quality
As part of Defra’s 25-year environment plan, the government is committed to providing clean air by reducing the emissions of five damaging air pollutants by 2030.
Ammonia is one such pollutant and is the only one not to have shown a significant reduction in emissions in recent years. Over 80% of ammonia emissions come from agriculture so changing farming practices, particularly those involving livestock nutrition, handling, and spreading of manures and nitrogen fertiliser use can potentially have a big effect on reducing ammonia losses.
Ammonia can cause damage directly to sensitive species such as lichens. It’s also a source of nitrogen so when carried in the air and then deposited onto the ground it can cause damage to sensitive natural habitats through enrichment and acidification of the soil. Ammonia also reacts in the air with other pollutants to form fine grainy matter which is damaging to human health.
Increasing biodiversity
Biodiversity matters because it supports the vital benefits humans get from the natural environment. Countryside Stewardship schemes offer land management options and capital works that keep, restore, and create priority habitats and support priority species that depend on these habitats. Improving biodiversity can be achieved by restoring habitats, protecting hedges, providing food and nesting resources for birds, insects, and other animals, and creating farmed areas for rare flowering plants. Collaboration at a local area increases habitat for some of the rarer species but can also encourage more common species to flourish in larger numbers.
Managing beaver activity
Following a successful trial in Devon, where the beaver population on the River Otter has been permitted to remain and expand naturally, the government has announced that we are now looking positively towards the reintroduction of beavers and further releases of this species in England. Beavers can bring significant benefits including increasing biodiversity, restoring wet woodlands, enhancing natural river processes, and attenuating (reducing) water flows. However, there are some circumstances where beaver activity may need to be managed to lessen negative impacts caused through their natural behaviours.
For the 2022 round, funds are available for Facilitators to bring together landowners or managers with beavers already present on their land to provide support, advice, and training. By co-ordinating local actions, groups should be able to harness the positive benefits beaver activity brings to the local environment.
Water management
Countryside Stewardship supports a range of water management options to improve water quality, address water pollution and address flood risk and coastal management. Through collaboration, land managers can reduce water pollution over a wider area by dealing with issues such as sediment run-off across holdings and improving water quality. The risk of flooding can be reduced by supporting changes to farming practices (such as crop management), improving farm infrastructure, and creating woodlands. These actions can help to reduce some of the effects of extreme weather events.
If you want to facilitate a new group, you can apply for the 2022 Countryside Stewardship Facilitation Fund. If you have an existing agreement that is coming to an end before the 2022 start date, you can also re-apply, but you’ll need to show that you’re meeting new priorities for the 2022 round of applications. This could be through choosing a new CS priority for your area and working with members of your existing group to deliver on that priority. You can also add new members to an existing group under a new application.
If you are in an existing agreement under the EU Programme which is not due to end before the new round starts on 1 June 2022, you can still apply. However, you must give us 6 months’ notice that you wish to end your current agreement. This means letting us know you’re terminating your current contract before we can confirm if you’ve been successful for the new 2022 scheme. If you are not successful in the new round of applications, you will not be able to withdraw your termination request and could end up without an agreement.
Before you apply
Before starting your application, read this manual thoroughly. You may need to refer to individual sections as you fill in your application.
Make sure your Rural Payments service details are up to date
You must be registered on the Rural Payments service before you can apply for the CS Facilitation Fund. If you are not already registered, you’ll need to verify your identity first before signing into the Rural Payments Service. You can do this in one of two ways:
- calling the Rural Payments helpline on 03000 200 301 and we will help you - this will only give you access to the Rural Payments service, not other government services
- online with GOV.UK Verify – this gives you simple, trusted, and secure access to an increasing number of public services on GOV.UK. If you have difficulty verifying your identity with GOV. UK Verify or you are having problems with the Verify service, you should contact your identity provider.
After you’ve verified your identity, you can sign in to the Rural Payments service and start to register. You will need to create a password. For security, do not share your password with anyone. Once you have registered, you’ll receive a Customer Registration Number (CRN) and a Single Business Identifier (SBI).
Before you start your application, check that the personal and business details you’ve registered are still correct. We’ll use them to contact you about your application so make sure they are up to date.
There are different permission levels on the Rural Payments service. To submit your application, you must have ‘Submit’ permission levels for Countryside Stewardship (Applications). If successful in your application, you will also need ‘Submit’ permission levels for Countryside Stewardship (Agreements).
If you work for an organisation, your organisation must be registered on the Rural Payments service. You’ll need to ask a registered person within the organisation to give you ‘Submit’ permission levels for CS (Applications) and CS (Agreements) to make applications and claims on their behalf.
You can find information about registering and updating your details on the Rural Payments service on GOV.UK. Or you can call us on 03000 200 301 if you have any questions.
Length of agreement
Countryside Stewardship Facilitation Fund agreements run for 3 years and will start from 1 June 2022.
Legal implications
This round of the CS Facilitation Fund will use the domestic power to give financial assistance in Section 1 of the Agriculture Act 2020, together with the new enforcement and monitoring powers in the Agriculture (Financial Assistance) Regulations 2021.
- Agriculture Act 2020 (legislation.gov.uk)
- The Agriculture (Financial Assistance) Regulations 2021 (legislation.gov.uk)
More information
Read about the different elements of Countryside Stewardship and environmental land management on GOV.UK to help with your application.