Environmental land management in 2024: details of actions and payments

Right now we printed an replace to the Agricultural Transition Plan on GOV.UK. It contains our progress, priorities and plans for the approaching years.     

In it, you may discover our total method to agricultural reform: that meals manufacturing can, and should, go hand in hand with the surroundings. Moreover, that by supporting productiveness, innovation and guaranteeing our schemes work with meals manufacturing, we are going to attain our bold environmental targets and preserve meals manufacturing.  

We’re happy that farmers throughout the nation proceed to enroll to our schemes. To get to the place we need to be, we need to assist much more farmers to get entangled and encourage these already taking motion to go even additional.

We’ll obtain this by making environmental schemes and regulation extra enticing, honest and workable. We additionally want ambition, which we are going to assist by encouraging and enabling extra focused and efficient motion. 

In 2024, we’re taking a major step ahead to attain that. We’re: 

rising cost charges by a mean of 10% for Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) and Countryside Stewardship (CS) agreements 
rising the variety of actions on provide in our environmental land administration schemes with as much as 50 new actions 
making schemes extra versatile and simpler to entry, with a streamlined single software service for farmers to use for SFI and CS Mid Tier  
paying a premium for prime ambition actions or for delivering packages of actions that may obtain better environmental advantages 
persevering with to prioritise an ‘advise and stop’ method throughout schemes and regulation, which can make issues fairer for all farmers taking part in schemes. 

This, and different adjustments, will make it simpler for our schemes to fit into farm companies, offering more cash for farmers ship change and guarantee we get the dimensions and ambition we want to- positively affect the surroundings.

There’s something for each farm no matter the place it’s and the land is owned or rented.  The Agricultural Transition Plan replace  is designed to offer better certainty. A full checklist of actions might be present in its technical annex.

On this submit, I’ll share a abstract of the replace. Within the coming weeks, we are going to publish posts on the provide for farmers by sector. 

The provide in 2024 

Replace to scheme cost charges

We’re updating scheme cost charges to replicate present market circumstances, which for some actions like species wealthy grassland imply large will increase.  

Scheme charges will improve by 10% on common. In case you have a dwell SFI or CS settlement, you needn’t do something to learn, we are going to routinely apply any uplifts to current agreements the place relevant.  

50 new actions

In summer time, we are going to launch as much as 50 new actions, which can help you entry scheme funding for issues like precision farming and agroforestry for the primary time. The brand new actions enhance the provide for all farm sorts, however particularly these on moorland and grassland.  

We listened to suggestions and launched extra ‘upkeep’ actions, alongside enhancing current actions. These actions pay farmers who’re already defending the surroundings. For instance, by means of sustaining grasslands, wetlands and scrub.

We made these adjustments in order that farmers will receives a commission extra for current actions to keep up habitats, with the value of sustaining species wealthy grassland rising from £182 to £646 per hectare. This higher displays the fact of delivering these habitats and creates an incentive for farmers to create extra. 

Additionally, extra actions shall be obtainable for shorter 3-year agreements, permitting better flexibility. This shall be of explicit profit to tenant farmers. 

Elsewhere, we are going to introduce precision farming actions which use know-how to focus on farming actions and cut back the usage of pricey pesticides or fertilisers.  

Contracts for innovation

We’ll award as much as 5, multi-million-pound contracts, with an preliminary worth of as much as £15 million, to advertise crop innovation.

By providing funds which assist agricultural know-how, similar to robotic mechanical weeding know-how, along with launching extra grants in 2024, we are going to make it easier to to undertake new know-how or practices so you may develop extra, promote extra and have extra resilient companies.

Single software service

Not solely will there be extra selection, however the best way you entry the provide will enhance. From summer time, there shall be a streamlined single software service so that you can apply for SFI and CS Mid Tier actions. It would exchange the separate software home windows and processes.

This less complicated, clearer, and quicker service will allow you to pick out from the vary of actions obtainable in your land and  mix suitable actions from SFI and CS in your land parcels extra simply. 

We’ll take away duplication between CS Mid-Tier and SFI actions, wherever potential. SFI settlement holders who entered into an settlement in 2023 will be capable to both improve their current settlement or apply for, and enter into, a separate 2024 settlement. 

This transformation will make it simpler for farmers to entry our companies however can have no discount in ambition. It would enable us to mix the breadth of the CS provide with the straightforward and versatile administration of SFI. 

CS Greater Tier agreements are completely different on every farm, and are extra advanced requiring recommendation, assist and in lots of circumstances formal consent. We’ll proceed to function a separate course of for these agreements, however we are going to provide the agreements by means of a less complicated, clearer and quicker service.  

Actions which might be at present solely obtainable in CS Greater Tier will even be made obtainable by means of our different gives. Because of this, the place acceptable, extra farmers shall be in a position entry these bold parts, together with the accompanying recommendation and assist for these, with out having to have a whole bespoke Greater Tier settlement the place that isn’t acceptable. 

After 2025, we are going to begin providing different schemes by means of this built-in service, together with the England Woodland Creation Provide. 

Premium funds

We’ll introduce premium cost actions with the largest environmental affect and in addition for mixtures of actions that ship advantages at scale. 

Premium cost charges shall be launched from 2024 for the 21 excessive precedence actions listed beneath. 

Theme  
Motion  
2024 cost charge with premium (per ha) 
Arable  
Nesting plots for lapwing   
£765  
Lowland heath  
Create lowland heathland  
£711  
Lowland Peat  
Elevate water ranges in cropped or arable peat soils to close the land floor  
£1,409  
Lowland Peat  
Elevate water ranges in everlasting grassland peat soils to close the land floor  
£1,381  
Agroforestry 
Preserve very low density in-field agroforestry on much less delicate land 
£248  
Agroforestry 
Preserve very low density in-field agroforestry on extra delicate land 
£248 
Agroforestry 
Preserve low density in-field agroforestry on much less delicate land 
£385  
Agroforestry 
Preserve low density in-field agroforestry on extra delicate land 
£385 
Agroforestry 
Preserve medium density in-field agroforestry  
£595  
Agroforestry 
Preserve excessive density in-field agroforestry  
£849  
Grassland 
Handle species-rich floodplain meadows  
£1,070  
Moorland 
Low grazing on moorland  
£53
Moorland 
Restricted grazing on moorland 
£66
Water 
6 metre to 24 metre three-d (3D) waterbody buffer strip  
£1,182  
Water 
Complement: enhanced floodplain storage  
£366  
Water 
Handle options on arable land  flood and drought resilience and water high quality   
£1,241  
Water 
Handle grassland for flood  and drought resilience and water high quality  
£938   
Water 
Join river and floodplain habitats 
£1,242  
Water 
Handle riparian and water edge habitats   
£1,186 
Water  
Make room for a river to maneuver  
£1,489  
Species  
Create scrub and open habitat mosaics  
£588 

Regulation method: advise and stop

We’re persevering with to ship a ‘advise and stop’ method throughout schemes and regulation, which can make issues fairer for all farmers taking part in schemes. Which means the numerous farmers who need to do the appropriate issues will get the assist you want if issues go mistaken.    

We’ll assist farmers again into compliance with better communication somewhat than fast penalties and are firmly dedicated to safeguarding environmental requirements and animal well being by means of proportionate regulation and outcome-based incentives to drive change.  

Vital enhancements have already been made however are persevering with to go additional. We’re rebuilding the system with a tailor-made, risk-based method to regulation that makes it simple to comply with the principles. 

Plan for the long run 

With improved selection and cost charges, now could be the time to use for SFI. For extra info go to our devoted SFI website. It units out the total provide.

That can assist you handle the transition and plan, you may get free recommendation from an unbiased supplier. 

On this submit, I’ve simply lined our environmental land administration schemes. The steering for each scheme and grant on provide might be discovered on the Funding for farmers, growers and land managers web page on GOV.UK.