Agri-environment scheme business and uptake data March 2025
Published 19 March 2025
Applies to England
© Crown copyright 2025
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Main messages
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At 1st March 2025, there were 37,900 active Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) agreements in England. This is a 18% increase in the number of agreements since January 2025.
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There are 31,900 businesses with an SFI agreement and 49,000 businesses in all agri-environment schemes. This includes Environmental Stewardship (ES), and Countryside Stewardship (CS) schemes without CS capital agreements.
Background
The Sustainable Farming Incentive scheme 2023 (SFI23) was launched in October 2023. Data on uptake of this scheme was first published in April 2024 and is published quarterly. SFI23 closed to new applications in June 2024 and was succeeded by the Sustainable Farming Incentive Expanded Offer. The SFI Expanded Offer opened on 31st May 2024 using a “phased rollout”, where applicants had to register their interest with RPA and were then invited to apply. The scheme temporarily closed to new applications on 11th March 2025.
This is an unscheduled statistical release to update the number of SFI agreements in March 2025 and the number of businesses in ES and CS.
SFI Uptake
On 1st March 2025, there were 37,900 live SFI agreements in England. This includes 25,300 agreements in SFI23 and 12,700 agreements in the SFI Expanded Offer.
Figure 1: Chart showing agreement uptake per month
Text description of Figure 1: A bar chart showing total SFI agreement uptake per month. The number of agreements has increased steadily since October 2023. SFI23 was closed to new agreements in June 2024 and the SFI Expanded Offer opened on 31st May 2024.
Source: SFI uptake data March 2025
Number of businesses in agri-environment schemes
On March 1st 2025, there were 31,900 businesses with SFI23 and SFI Expanded Offer agreements. Businesses with agreements in both schemes are only counted once in this total.
Two totals are calculated for the number of businesses participating in ES, CS, and SFI. The first total, 49,000 businesses, excludes CS Capital agreements, while the second total, 51,500 businesses, includes them.
Table 1: Number of SFI agreements per English region
| Scheme | Number of Businesses |
|---|---|
| Environmental Stewardship | 4,820 |
| Countryside Stewardship without Capital Agreements | 27,200 |
| Countryside Stewardship with Capital Agreements | 11,600 |
| Sustainable Farming Incentive 2023 | 23,600 |
| Sustainable Farming Incentive Expanded Offer | 11,800 |
| Total Sustainable Farming Incentive | 31,900 |
| Total agri-environment schemes without CS Capital | 49,000 |
| Total agri-environment schemes with CS Capital | 51,500 |
About these statistics
Data
These statistics are created using Rural Payments Agency data.
Revisions policy
This release has no scheduled revisions. Unscheduled revisions will follow the Defra policy on revisions and corrections.
Future publications
The next release of these statistics will be in May 2025. All previously published data is available here.
Definitions
The Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI)
The Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) scheme offer payments to land managers for carrying out activities that benefit the environment on their land. The SFI Pilot launched in 2021, followed by a limited rollout of the full scheme in 2022 (SFI22). All agreements from SFI22 closed on 31st March 2023 and many agreement holders started to new agreements in SFI23. SFI23 was opened in October 2023 and was open to applications until June 2024, when it was superseded by the SFI Expanded Offer. The information presented here relates to SFI23 and the SFI Expanded Offer.
Information about the SFI Expanded Offer can be found here.
Countryside Stewardship
Countryside Stewardship offers funding to farmers and land managers for managing land in ways that protect, restore, or enhance the environment, while also helping to mitigate the effects of climate change.
Information about Countryside Stewardship can be found here.
Environmental Stewardship
Environmental Stewardship is a land management scheme that provides funding to land managers for carrying out actions to benefit the environment.
Information about Environmental Stewardship can be found here.
Official status
Official statistics are statistics produced by Crown bodies and other organisations included on one of the Official Statistics Orders, on behalf of the UK government and devolved administrations. These are official statistics, guided by the UK Statistics Authority’s Code of Practice for Statistics.
Contact details
Katie Killick
Email: FCPStatsandReporting@defra.gov.uk