Spring 2025 Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) update

The most recent announcements have been in relation to the endorsed Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) actions, as well as the release of the new Countryside Stewardship Higher Tier (CSHT) actions at the end of last year. There are still questions about how the endorsed SFI actions will be approved, who does it and time scales, but we expect them to be resolved soon. Applications continue to be fairly smooth for the rest of SFI, with a couple of exceptions discussed below. The application process for CSHT is more complicated than that for the SFI. It is currently only available for those who are invited to start the pre-application advice stage. As we understand it, those invited have already completed a management plan with the Forestry Commission or Natural England.

SFI agreements

We are still seeing issues with applications, particularly with rotational actions. In some cases, historic Countryside Stewardship (CS) schemes, which have finished, but have not been fully extracted from the computer system, are still causing issues. There are also confusing and differing messaging from Rural Payments Agency (RPA) and DEFRA regarding changing actions, leaving CS schemes and new SFI agreements. It is a DEFRA scheme, administered by RPA and so is dependent on the RPA computer system. It is frustrating that it is not as easy to change as it was implied. In particular, when farms took out new or mirror CS schemes due to the promise of the ability to move easily when SFI was available. We continue to press for clarity on this, as well as trying to resolve some of the odd issues with incompatibility between schemes. For example, robotic weeding is not an action on organic horticultural land, but is on organic rotational land.

One certainty is that the government are committed to this scheme as a whole, and any options or actions that you currently have will continue to be funded. They are reviewing continually, so may make changes to payment rates on some actions, particularly where they have had very little uptake, or are not seen as good value for money. Although, in some circumstances, low uptake could be due to CS scheme rules barring entry. It probably more reflects that money is as much behind SFI applications as environmental provision.

There are some changes which have been announced that are worth being aware of.

Higher Level Stewardship (HLS) option payment rates

The government has just announced that they are increasing payment rates for some of the options in Higher Level Stewardship (HLS), which haven’t been improved in recent years. All agreements will be eligible, so it is expected that most, if not all, will get additional income. This is good news for those involved who have felt that they have been penalised for being early adopters of environmental schemes. Exactly what the new rates are will be announced soon, but everyone will be contacted with the new payment rates by April. The increased payment will be made in the annual payment at the end of the year.

Capital grants

Also announced is the unfreezing of the capital grants scheme and the announcement that all applicants who submitted before 26th November 2024 do not need to do anything. Those applications will be processed and agreements offered honouring the opportunities at the time. There are 3 years to complete actions.

There will be an opportunity for anyone who had not applied to apply in the summer. There will be capping on the amounts that can be applied for in 2025, but previous applications will not have the cap applied.

The caps for 2025 are: £25,000 for water quality options, £25,000 for air quality options, £25,000 for natural flood management and £35,000 for boundaries, trees and orchards.

You can apply up to the cap on each of the options, but only one application per single business identifier (SBI), so only one application for capital grants per farm per year. There is no cap on applications for management plans.

Farming equipment and technology fund

This scheme will reopen in the spring for one round. It will again offer grants from £1000 to £25000 to support increased productivity through investment in machinery and equipment. There will be particular support for equipment for animal health and welfare and slurry.

Animal health and welfare pathway

The free vet visits will continue and will now be available for every species on the farm, and every herd or flock under your management. This is an improvement for mixed farms. The payment rates remain the same with varying rates for different species and also varying rates for follow up visits. If you’ve applied for a vet visit since 19th June 2024 you don’t need to register and apply again, as you’ll already be in the system. If you already have an agreement starting with ‘AHWR’ then you need to apply for a new agreement.

There is also going to be a consultation on making some parts, such as Bovine Viral Diarrhoea (BVD) testing compulsory.

Farming in protected landscapes (FIPL)

This will continue for another year. This has been very useful for some of the smaller investments, and for farms in national parks and national landscapes (previously called areas of outstanding natural beauty)

What next for future farming resilience?

This is the final update from the Soil Association DEFRA Future farming Resilience team as the funding from DEFRA finishes. However, we are keen to continue supporting you all where we can. We will continue to update changes and government changes through our monthly Farming Newsletter. If you don't already receive this, please sign up in the Farming newsletter (or on the request form in the sidebar).

We will still be here and available to answer your questions if needed, so please continue to ask us. We will provide advice is part of our wider role as Soil Association Farming advisors, through projects like our Agroecology at Scale work. We are always happy to talk to people considering conversion to organic.

There is also a blog from DEFRA which will continue, and we do recommend you register for: https://defrafarming.blog.gov.uk/subscribe/.

You can also see our Future Farm Resilience resources page.