We now have a fuller picture of what happened to the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) earlier this year. After the sudden closure in March, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has just confirmed that ~3,000 farms who had started but not submitted applications WILL be allowed to apply — but only for agreements capped at £9,300/year.
👉 Full statement from Farming Minister Daniel Zeichner here: https://t.ly/m_aBF
So… where does that leave us?
Here’s a recap + the latest data:
📊 Latest Take-up Figures (to 1 April). Also released this week, these show SFI up-take until the pause:
💰 £818.7m in total annual value
🧾 39,300 live agreements
🔝 20 actions = 90% of the budget
☘️ SAM3 (Herbal leys) - way out in front: £156m!!
Only 2 are non-SFI23:
🏠 HEF1 (Maintain traditional farm buildings)
🌾 PRF1 (Variable rate nutrient application)
📊 See 1st image below for a full ranking of actions by popularity over time.
🪱 By area covered, SAM1 (Soil Management Plans) is by far the most widespread:
→ 3.6m ha enrolled
→ Soil Benchmark now supports 858,000 ha — over 27% of the total 🌱
📦 The largest non-planning action by area?
🐝 IPM4 (No insecticide on arable crops): 885,000 ha
🔮 What Might the Reopened Scheme Look Like?
Zeichner says more detail will come “this summer” (🤞 let’s hope that’s not 'DEFRA summer' a.k.a. November).
Some educated guesses:
💸 The SFI Management Payment may go→ £51m/year (6% of total spend)
→ Originally a bit of a sop to the NFU to boost early adoption - job done?
🌾 Popular, lucrative options like AHL2 (Winter bird food) may be scaled back
→ £69.8m/year (8% of total spend)→ Only on arable land; DEFRA have said they want to target SFI more at marginal (i.e. livestock-heavy) areas
🧭 The Big Question for DEFRA
What’s the core purpose of SFI in future?
🎯 Can it remain a purely environmental scheme?
→ Fund the most impact, wherever it is — even if that means fewer, larger recipients
🤝 Or does it also aim for fairness and inclusion?
→ Support hill farms, marginal land, and wider participation — even if environmental returns per £ are lower
The old EU CAP was more the latter. SFI was quite bold in shifting towards the former.
But with a finite budget, DEFRA can’t have it both ways. Decision time for Rt Hon Steve Reed MP
💬 Which actions do you think should be retained in a reformed SFI?
💬 Should management plans (SAM1 / NUM1 / IPM1) stay - are they good value for money? (I might be biased 🤣 , but I think with a combination of modern map based tools like ours to produce them, and advisors to help interpret them, robust, intelligible plans are critical).
💬 Should SFI stay just targeted at maximum environmental impact - even if that means big chunks of the budget going to bigger, wealthier farms?
