Sustainable Farming Incentive 2023: Expanded offer to roll out from August
The Sustainable Farming Incentive 2023 will start accepting applications from August, offering an improved, more streamlined process for farmers.
The Sustainable Farming Incentive will help protect and improve the environment, contributing towards targets set in the Environmental Improvement Plan.
The new and improved Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) 2023 will start accepting applications in a controlled rollout from August, the government has confirmed today (21 June), offering farmers additional actions and more flexibility to choose the actions they want to get paid for.
Farmers will get paid for taking actions that support food production and improve farm productivity and resilience, while also protecting and improving the environment. Additional actions under SFI 2023 will help ensure there is an offer that is attractive and workable for all types of farms.
The 23 actions on offer cover existing themes including soil health and moorland, as well as new actions on hedgerows, integrated pest management, nutrient management, farmland wildlife, buffer strips, and low input grassland.
When adopted at scale, these actions will support sustainable food production and contribute towards the environmental targets set out in the government’s Environmental Improvement Plan. Optimising the use of nutrients through a nutrient management review, for example, will not only reduce carbon emissions and improve the natural environment but can also reduce farmers’ costs.
Farming Minister Mark Spencer said:
After listening to extensive feedback from farmers, we’ve done a huge amount to streamline and improve the Sustainable Farming Incentive, making it as simple and flexible as possible for farmers to engage with, apply for and embrace.
We want farmers to be able to access a package that works best for them. The scheme will remain flexible to allow for the changing needs and requirements of both farmers and their markets to ensure the best outcomes for food production and the natural environment.
The range of actions mean farmers could be paid from £10 per 100m for managing one side of a hedgerow (plus a further £10 per 100m to maintain or establish hedgerow trees); £129 per hectare for multi-species cover crops; or £589 for a nutrient management review.
The government has also confirmed the SFI management payment will be applied to all land-based SFI actions, including moorland, and has updated the payment rate for low input grassland action to make the rates the same for upland and lowland areas.
For tenant farmers, along with other improvements made in response to Baroness Rock’s review, there are shorter agreement lengths that do not require landlord consent. The SFI 2023 offer makes a range of actions and payments more accessible to those on short-term agreements, and includes a range of new actions not previously available in schemes.
The government’s flexible and accessible farming schemes, as well as the new measures announced at the Farm to Fork Summit last month, are supporting farmers to keep the nation fed while protecting and enhancing our environment – and are all part of the £2.4 billion annual farming budget ringfenced for the life of this parliament.
Further information
SFI 2023: What’s on offer:
- More than twice as many new SFI actions as originally planned
- A reliable income – payments are made every three months
- A management payment of £20 per hectare for the first 50 hectares to cover participation costs
- A payment to cover one on-farm vet visit each year to review the health and welfare of livestock
- The same payment rates for farms in upland and lowland areas
- An additional annual payment for common land of £6.15 per hectare for groups of two or more
- A full SFI 2023 handbook with confirmed payment rates and final details for each action
How we’ve simplified SFI:
- The scheme is straightforward to apply for online – farmers will only be shown the options available to their farm
- SFI is less prescriptive than before, so farmers can choose their own combination of actions in a new ‘pick and mix’ structure
- There’s no minimum or maximum land area or hedgerow length, so farmers can choose how much land to cover with their SFI agreement
- SFI actions and Countryside Stewardship (CS) options can be combined in the same parcels, and on the same areas of land within parcels, if the land is eligible for both schemes and the actions are compatible
- Farmers can decide how best to achieve each action’s aim, rather than prescriptive one-size-fits-all rules
Further info:
- To ensure farmers are able to make the most of our schemes, we’ve published a new SFI Handbook giving farmers all the detail they need in a single document, including which SFI actions can be done on the same land as Countryside Stewardship (CS) options, Environmental Stewardship (ES) options, and other SFI standards and actions.
- We’ve also made it easier for farmers to quickly see what’s on offer for their farm type by producing sector-specific guides.
- Applications for SFI 2023 will start to be accepted through a controlled rollout beginning in August. During the initial roll out period, when farmers sign into the Rural Payments service they will either be able to apply online or will be asked to contact the Rural Payments Agency, who will arrange for them to start an application.
- SFI 2022 has now closed for applications to enable a smooth transition to the 2023 offer, and we will be in touch with all farmers signed up to the original scheme, as well as those who had submitted applications, to explain how they can access the payments, benefits and improvements in the 2023 offer As with SFI 2022, we will have a controlled roll out of the application service for SFI 2023.