Official Statistics

CS and SFI payments 2022 to 2024

Published 12 June 2025

Applies to England

1. Main messages

• The total amount paid out to agreement holders under Countryside Stewardship and SFI in 2024 was £1.2 billion.

• In 2024, £665 million was paid to Countryside Stewardship agreement holders and £573 million to SFI agreement holders.

• The total amount paid to agreement holders under Countryside Stewardship increased each year in the years 2022-2024.

• The item with the highest total payment amount in 2024 was the SFI action “Establish and maintain Herbal leys” (SAM3), with payments made for this action totalling £132 million.

2. Background

This statistical release gives details of payments made under the Environmental Land Management schemes Countryside Stewardship (CS) and the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) in the years 2022, 2023 and 2024 .

Countryside Stewardship opened in 2015. In 2024, CS Mid Tier (including Wildlife Offers) merged with SFI for new entrants to schemes from 2024, known as the expanded SFI offer. Most options were transferred into the SFI expanded offer.

SFI23 opened in 2023 and was replaced by the SFI expanded offer in 2024. The first payments made for SFI23 were made in 2024. 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.

3. Payments 2022 to 2024

The total amount paid out to agreement holders under Countryside Stewardship and SFI in 2024 was £1.2 billion. Of this, £665 million was paid to Countryside Stewardship agreement holders and £573 million to SFI agreement holders.

The total amount paid to agreement holders under Countryside Stewardship increased each year in the years 2022-2024. Between 2023 and 2024, the amount paid out under CS increased by increased by 47%, from £452 million to £665 million. In addition, the first payments made under SFI23 and the SFI expanded offer were made in 2024, totalling £573 million.

3.1 Payments made under Countryside Stewardship and SFI in the years 2022, 2023 and 2024

Figure 1: A bar chart showing payments made under Countryside Stewardship and SFI in the years 2022, 2023 and 2024, in millions of pounds (GBP).

Source: CS and SFI Payments 2022-2024 dataset

3.2 Table: Payments made under Countryside Stewardship and SFI, 2022-2024

Scheme	Contract Type	2022	2023	2024
Countryside Stewardship	Capital Grants	£20,149,000	£27, 055, 300	£89,949,900
Countryside Stewardship	Higher Tier	£84,977,700	£105,844,000	£163,812,000
Countryside Stewardship	Mid Tier	£252,100,000	£289,038,000	£378,096,000
Countryside Stewardship	Wildlife Offer	£22,430,100	£29,863,600	£33,128,000
Sustainable Farming Incentive	SFI Expanded Offer	-	-	£13,789,900
Sustainable Farming Incentive	SFI23	-	-	£559,151,000
Total	-	£379,657,000	£451,801,000	£1,237,940,000

A table showing payments made under Countryside Stewardship and SFI in 2022, 2023 and 2024, broken down by contract type and showing totals. Figures are rounded to 6 significant figures. The first payments for SFI were made in 2024, so there is no data on SFI payments for 2022 and 2023.

Source: CS and SFI Payments 2022-2024 dataset

CS payments made under Mid Tier contracts increased by 50% from £252 million in 2022 to £378 million in 2024. In that same time period, payments made for Capital Grants contracts increased by 350% from £20 million to £90 million. Payments made under Higher Tier contracts increased by 93%, from £85 million in 2022 to £164 million in 2024. Payments made for Wildlife Offer agreement increased by 50%, from £22 million to £33 million, between 2022 and 2024.

3.3 CS payments made per contract type

Figure 2: A chart showing payments made under each contract type (Mid Tier, Wildlife Offers, Higher Tier and Capital Grants) for Countryside Stewardship, in millions of pounds (GBP)

Source: CS and SFI Payments 2022-2024 dataset

The vast majority (98%) of SFI payments made in 2024 were made for SFI23 agreements. This is because the SFI expanded offer did not open until mid-2024. As payments under this scheme are not made until at least 3 months after the start of an agreement, we would not expect to see a large amount of money being paid out for agreements under the SFI expanded offer in 2024.

The action with the highest number of agreements with payments across both CS and SFI in 2024 was the SFI23 Management Payment (MPA1). This action was available to all SFI23 agreement holders to help with the administrative costs of the scheme. The total amount paid out for this action was just over £40 million. The action with the next-highest number of agreements with payments was the SFI23 action “Assess soil, produce a soil management plan and test soil organic matter” (SAM1), with 20,000 payments made for this item, totalling just over £20 million.

The item with the highest total payment amount in 2024 was Establish and maintain Herbal leys (SAM3), with payments made for this action totalling £132 million over 10,600 agreements. The average payment per agreement for this action was £12,500. Payments made for SAM3 in 2024 equalled nearly 11% of total payments made across both schemes, and 23% of payments made under SFI.

3.4 Actions with the highest amounts paid out, across both schemes in 2024

Figure 3: A chart showing the amount paid per action for the top 10 actions with the highest total payments across Countryside Stewardship and SFI in 2024

Source: CS and SFI Payments 2022-2024 dataset

Top 10 actions with the highest total payments:

• SAM3: Create and maintain herbal leys
• AHL2: Winter bird food on arable and horticultural land
• NUM3: Legume fallow
• FG2: Sheep netting
• GS2: Permanent grassland with very low inputs (outside SDAs)
• MPA1: Management payment
• AB9: Winter bird food
• IPM4:No use of insecticide on arable crops and permanent crops
• AB8: Flower-rich margins and plots
• AB15: Two year sown legume fallow

The top 10 actions with the highest total payments accounted for around 40% of payments made across both schemes in 2024.

The top 50% of actions (the 176 actions with the highest payment amounts, out of 353 actions) accounted for 97% of payments. This means that half of the actions across Countryside Stewardship and SFI account for 97% of the payments made under these schemes in 2024.

4. About these statistics

These statistics were created using data supplied by the Rural Payments Agency (RPA). The payment amount used for each option/action was the most recent payment amount on the RPA system, so the totals may not exactly equal the amount of money paid by RPA to successful claimants in each year. This is because payment amounts can be adjusted after they have been made. For example, more money can be paid to a claimant if the payment rate for an option is increased and this is applied retrospectively. Money can also be reclaimed if the original payment amount was found to be too much- for example, if an action had been done on a smaller area than claimed.

Payment amounts have not been adjusted for inflation. Numbers are presented to 3 significant figures, except in tables where they are rounded to 6 significant figures. Payment totals may also include payments that have been made for closed agreements and payments that are due to be reclaimed, but have not yet been reclaimed.

The year used here is the year that payments were first made. This will usually be the same year as the applicant claimed in, but can be the following year.

For SFI23, the number of agreements with payments in 2024 is higher than the total number of agreements in the scheme. This is because a number of advance payments were issued under this scheme, resulting in some agreements having payments made twice in one year.

In Countryside Stewardship, agreement holders must make a claim for payment. These claim amounts are usually lower than the amount that is on agreements. Claims are made for work that has been done under agreement in the preceding year. Agreement holders can claim once per year. Claims for Capital Grants can be made up to 3.3 years after the agreement has been made. CS and SFI agreements can be updated to add more actions or land at certain points in the agreement.

The numbers presented here will not precisely match numbers from other sources relating to number of agreements and amounts under agreement by option/action, due to these differences.

5. Contact details

Farming and Countryside Programme Statistics and Reporting team

Email: FCPStatsandreporting@defra.gov.uk

Defra
Seacole Building
2 Marsham Street
London
SW1P 4DF