Tag: Countryside Stewardship

SFI and Countryside Stewardship Areas

Defra have published data showing the area that had been entered into each Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) and Countryside Stewardship (CS) action, as at 1st April 2024.  The data set also shows the area in specific Entry Level and Higher-Level Stewardship Schemes, although these are being progressively wound down.

This data covers the 13,900 SFI 2023 agreements, and 3,200 SFI 2022 agreements which were live at that time.  With applications open year-round, the data will always be slightly behind the true figure, but we expect to see the area trends continue upwards as agreement numbers increase.  As of 29th April, 20,000 farmers had applied for an SFI agreement.  A total of just 94,000 hectares is being managed under the six actions which Defra the 25% area cap on (see https://abcbooks.co.uk/sfi-cap/ ).

Of the options which run across all farming systems, 1.6 million hectares of ground is in the Soil Management Planning Standard (SAM1).  For hedgerows, over 124 thousand kilometers are now being managed under SFI and CS.

For CS, there were 34,900 live agreements, up from 32,630 a year earlier.

Arable Land under Environmental Schemes

There is still 284,000 and 211,000 hectares of arable and horticultural land being managed under the SFI 2022 scheme Introductory and Intermediate offer respectively.  These agreements will end in June.

Under both SFI 2023 and CS there is a significant volume of land now being cover cropped.  This data is the clearest evidence yet of the volume of cover cropping taking place in the England.  With payments being made on a combined total of almost 195,000 hectares.  Additionally, 94,000 hectares are managed with companion cropping.

No use of insecticide (IPM4) looked set to be an attractive option for many arable farmers, and this appears to be reality, with 430k hectares due to be managed without insecticides.  This is just over 10% of the English arable area.

There has been significant concern about the volume of ‘food’ production that could be lost in the England, due to the attractiveness of ‘non-productive’ options.  However, the Defra data shows that relatively low levels of arable cropping has moved into such actions.  Under SFI around 124,000 hectares has been placed into land use change options including the rotational legume fallow (NUM3 – 51,000 hectares).  There is also a further 22,000 hectares-worth of increases in the Countryside Stewardship non-productive arable options.

That said, the data represents a snapshot in time, with continued challenges for spring drilling in parts of England there is still significant scope for more land to be placed into these options.  This is likely to be legume fallow, although the area may then fall in future years as the option is rotational and area can be reduced by half.

Grassland under Environmental Schemes

The most immediately noticeable element of the grassland figures is the relatively low uptake of the scheme in the uplands.  This indicates one of two things, either there were limited opportunities to carry out more than is already being delivered under ELS/HLS, or the offer did not provide enough of a financial incentive.  The uplands offer will improve with the 2024 round of SFI.

There was approaching 74,000 hectares of the Moorland Assessment Plan, and just over 13,000 hectares of low input grassland in SDAs.  In addition, 97,000 hectares was being managed under the 2022 scheme.  There are also increases in upland and SDA related CS options, as farms look to bring in more revenue as BPS payments fall or ELS/HLS agreements come to an end.  The total area of farmed LFA land in England is around 1.8m hectares.

For lowland grass, in SFI 26,000 hectares has been taken out of production (IGL1-IGL3).  In terms of productive management, 101,000 hectares has been placed into low input grassland, whilst 98,000 hectares has gone into NUM2 (legumes on improved grassland).

Future increases in area for grassland actions will undoubtedly be seen, especially if farmers become more confident in managing grassland according to the prescriptions of SFI, whilst maintain or enhancing productivity.

SFI 2024

This month (May) we are expecting Defra to publish the Handbook detailing what is required under the SFI 2024 scheme.  We then anticipate a phased rollout of the scheme from this summer.

The full dataset can be found at – https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/cs-es-and-sfi-option-uptake-data-2024.  This will be an annual publication, and a further update will be extended after 1st April 2025.

Countryside Stewardship

Similar to last year, there are delays in getting Countryside Stewardship agreement offers out.  Natural England has said it will be writing to those affected, saying it aims to issue all agreements by the end of March 2018.  These are for contracts which apply from 1st January 2018 and therefore requirements must be being adhered to now.  Natural England has said it will prioritise those with spring-sown options.  For applications being made this year, for a January 2019 start date, the submission deadline has been brought forward, to the end of July, in the hope of avoiding this problem next year.  Having the PLCD mapping update will not have helped; agreement holders are advised to check their offers carefully as if mapping changes have been made which are wrong, this information will have been used incorrectly in the agreement offer.

Countryside Stewardship Changes

The Countryside Stewardship Scheme (CSS) is to get a number of improvements ahead of the 2018 application period.  These are designed to make it easier for farmers to access environmental funding.

‘Streamlined Packages’

Four ‘packages’ covering the most common farm types will be offered.  These will have a shorter applications form and simpler checks to make the application process quicker and easier.  They will also be non-competitive, so applicants are guaranteed an offer as long as they meet the minimum requirements.  The packages group together individual management options under a number of categories, with there usually being a requirement to pick a minimum number of options from each category. The four packages are;

  • Arable Offer:  11 options grouped under three categories; with a minimum of 3% of the farmed area under options
  • Lowland Grazing Offer: 7 options under three categories; with a minimum of 2% of the farmed area under options
  • Upland Offer: 8 options under two categories
  • Mixed Farming Offer: 14 options under three categories; with a minimum of 3% of the farmed area under options

The arable offer will be applied for online, through the Rural Payments system.  The other three will be paper-based.  Unlike other CSS agreements, options under the Arable Offer will not allow double funding – i.e. options chosen will not be eligible to count towards the EFA requirement under Greening. 

These changes make the CSS rather more like the old Entry-Level Stewardship scheme and are designed to boost uptake.  The ‘classic’ Mid-Tier and Higher-Tier agreements will continue to be on offer for those that wish to design more bespoke schemes.  It will be possible to have a mix of streamlined and classic Mid-tier elements on the same holding (but not the same fields).   Full details will be made available in scheme Handbooks which are due to be published in the New Year.  Although no precise date has yet been provided, the scheme is likely to open for applications sometime early in 2018 (probably 15th Jan).  For more details see – https://www.gov.uk/government/news/countryside-stewardship-detail-of-new-simplified-offers

Hedgerows and Boundaries Grant

This strand of the CSS will be open again in 2018, and has also seen changes.  The application will open earlier next year.  In 2017 it was the 1st Feb, so presumably it will be early in January, with the 15th looking most likely.  The total budget has been increased to £10m and the maximum for an individual grant rises from £5,000 to £10,000.  Applications can be made online.  The deadline for applications is likely to be 30th April.