On 2nd December, Defra released details of the new Sustainable Farming Incentive. Here, Katie Hilton, Director and grant funding specialist at Cheffins gives us the lowdown on this new funding opportunity.
"Defra has today published its scheme rules for the new Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) ahead of its industry launch in 2022. The initial rollout of the scheme next year will focus on three environmental standards, plus an annual Health and Welfare Review for livestock farmers. The three environmental standards will be Arable and Horticultural Soils, Grassland Soils and the Moorland and Rough Grazing Standard. Farmers and landowners will be invited to sign up to a three year agreement, with allowances made for tenant farmers with only two years remaining on their tenancy to be able to enter the scheme too.
Early signs are encouraging in terms of flexibility. Defra has learnt from past experience that farmers and landowners cannot necessarily commit to long-term agreements without any room for adjustment. Under SFI farmers will be able to choose how many fields to enter into the scheme, and they can add more land, standards or ‘levels of ambition’ each year. Having this 12 monthly review point will be incredibly useful where farmers would prefer to take an incremental approach.
Equally, farmers at the other end of the scale who enter at the highest ambition levels and subsequently feel they may have over-committed will also benefit from these review points which have been lacking from previous scheme such as Countryside Stewardship.
The actual content of the Arable and Horticultural Soils standard holds some disappointment, with only the Introductory and Intermediate levels of the standard available next year at £22 and £40 per hectare respectively. Defra has held back on releasing the Advanced level of this standard which includes the use of no-tillage techniques and would have attracted a higher payment. Applicants to this higher level will be forced to wait until 2023.
The introduction of SFI signals the first stage of Defra’s transition from EU subsidies to a new domestic regime, but many will be concerned about the level of support offered under SFI during these next few critical years. It is imperative that the industry is supported sufficiently to enable farmers of all type and scale to survive the changes ahead.
Defra is clearly taking a cautious approach to this new scheme, allowing plenty of opportunity to adjust the goalposts as they go along if they feel improvements are needed. But equally, they are allowing a good level of flexibility to applicants and this announcement has a much fairer tone to it than we ever saw under Basic Payment Scheme. We are assured that breaches will be dealt with in a proportionate way and that mechanisms will be in place to help farmers who seek to make adjustments to their SFI schemes.”
For further information, or advice on grant funding, contact Katie Hilton on katie.hilton@cheffins.co.uk