Secretary of State, Steve Barclay, announced the biggest upgrade to farming schemes since the start of the agricultural transition at the Oxford Farming Conference on 4 January 2024. He pledged to back farmers and continue to support the agriculture sector to ‘do what they do best, produce food hand in hand with preserving the diversity and abundance of nature’.
The updates include funding uplifts, streamlined application processes, enhanced environmental incentives and support for the rollout of new technology. These will provide further support for British farmers, strengthening supply chains and helping deliver the Government’s commitment to continue to produce at least 60% of the food we eat in the UK.
Under the UK’s agricultural transition, new farming schemes are paying farmers to take actions that boost sustainable food production while delivering positive outcomes for the environment. The schemes are designed to work for all farm types and sizes, with thousands of farmers across England already taking part, and replace the bureaucratic Common Agricultural Policy which saw 50% of funding go to the largest 10% of landowners.
Speaking at the conference, Steve Barclay reiterated the Government’s support for British farmers and outlined the updated offer for 2024 which has been designed using farmers’ feedback and aims to bring more farmers on board the schemes and facilitate even greater environmental ambition.
By updating prices in the environmental land management schemes (ELMs) and making schemes streamlined, more flexible, and easier to access, farmers will be given more choices about what they can do to increase payment rates moving forward. The simpler, clearer, and faster service will enable them to select from the range of actions available on their land parcels and combine compatible actions from SFI and CS more easily.
Duplication between the Countryside Stewardship (CS) Mid-Tier and the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) scheme will be removed. SFI agreement holders who agreed in 2023 will be able to either upgrade their existing agreement or apply for and enter a separate 2024 agreement. These changes will make it easier for farmers to access services but will have no reduction in ambition allowing them to combine the breadth of the CS offer with the simple and flexible administration of SFI.
Actions that are currently only available in CS Higher Tier will also be made available through our other offers so that more farmers will be able to access those ambitious elements, along with the accompanying advice and support for those, without having to have an entire bespoke Higher Tier agreement where that is not appropriate.
According to The Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (DEFRA), “food production can, and must, go hand in hand with the environment … by supporting productivity, innovation and ensuring our schemes work with food production, we will reach our ambitious environmental targets and maintain food production.”
The changes have been made so that farmers will get paid more for existing actions to maintain habitats which better reflects the reality of delivering these habitats and creates an incentive for farmers to create even more.
Elsewhere, precision farming actions will be introduced which use technology to target farming activities and reduce the use of costly pesticides or fertilisers. DEFRA will award up to 5, multi-million-pound contracts, with an initial value of up to £15 million, to promote crop innovation. By offering payments which support agricultural technology, such as robotic mechanical weeding technology, in addition to launching more grants in 2024, the government plans to help farmers adopt new technology or practices so that they can grow more, sell more and have more resilient businesses.
After 2025, other schemes through this integrated service, including the England Woodland Creation Offer will also become available.
Our Head of Agribusiness, David Kinnersley said: “I am pleased to see further detail on the SFI, extra options for farmers and the proposed increase in payment levels. This will help raise confidence in the schemes and should enable businesses to change practices, improve the environment and provide other public goods without taking all the financial risk. It will also help us as, advisors guide our clients and their businesses, with a clearer set of policy options.”
More information can be found on the DEFRA website. Details of the Agricultural Transition Plan 2021 to 2024 can be found here.
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