SFI spend statistics notice January 2026
Published 8 January 2026
© Crown copyright 2026
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This publication is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/sfi-spend-statistics-notice-january-2026/sfi-spend-statistics-notice-january-2026
1. Main messages
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As of October 2025, one quarter of total committed annual revenue spend under the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) was under agreement to be paid to the 4% highest-paid businesses under the scheme.
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Most SFI scheme actions are paid per hectare. This mostly results in higher total annual payments being made to farm businesses with greater land areas.
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As of April 1st 2025, 90% of committed spending on SFI went on less than 40 of the 102 actions available in under the SFI Expanded Offer.
2. 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 ad hoc statistical release to communicate the overall distribution of committed spend across farm businesses under SFI and distribution of committed spend across SFI actions. For additional published statistics on the uptake of SFI, as well as other agri-environment Schemes, see here: Agri-environment scheme uptake data - GOV.UK.
3. SFI spend
Total committed annual revenue spend across SFI23 and the Expanded Offer was £848 million on 27th October 2025. There were 35,500 businesses with agreements under these schemes.
When businesses in SFI are ranked by their annual income through SFI, the highest 4% of businesses will receive 25% of total annual revenue payments. Table 1 shows a further breakdown of this distribution.
Table 1: Total cumulative committed SFI spend and the associated cumulative proportions of businesses in SFI receiving that spend
| Cumulative Spend | Population percentage |
|---|---|
| 0% | 0% |
| 25% | 4% |
| 50% | 14% |
| 75% | 34% |
| 100% | 100% |
This is a partial picture of funding through agri-environment schemes in England and does not include data for Countryside Stewardship (CS) or Environmental Stewardship (ES) schemes. These can also be paid through annual revenue payments, although one-time capital funding is available for some options under ES. These data are correct as of October 2025.
Total annual payments to businesses depend on the actions taken up in an agreement, and their areas. Generally, we would expect farm businesses with larger areas to enter larger areas into SFI agreements.
4. SFI Actions
There are currently 102 actions in the SFI expanded offer. The committed spend on SFI actions can be produced by multiplying the number of agreements and/or hectares by the payment rate. The total spend on SFI can be calculated by adding the uptake for SFI23 and the SFI expanded offer.
When actions are ordered by spend, fewer than 40 actions account for 90% of spend.
5. About these statistics
5.1 Data
These statistics are created using unpublished Rural Payments Agency data.
The statistics for action distribution are created using previously released Payment Rates and Uptake Data last updated in November 2025 .
5.2 Revisions policy
This release has no scheduled revisions. Unscheduled revisions will follow the Defra policy on revisions and corrections.
5.3 Future publications
This release has no scheduled future publication.
6. Definitions
6.1 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.
6.2 Committed Spend
“Committed spend” means the amount of money that has been agreed to be paid out to agri-environment scheme agreement-holders. This number may be slightly different to the actual amount that will be paid out due to factors like agreement cancellation and post-payment adjustments.
6.3 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
Angus Hitchmough
Email: FCPStatsandReporting@defra.gov.uk