The Sustainable Farming Incentive now represents England’s main environmental land management scheme within the UK’s post-Brexit agricultural policy, replacing area-based subsidies with payments for environmental outcomes, including improving soil health, increasing biodiversity and improving water quality.
Following the unexpected closure of SFI in 2025, Defra have introduced a number of changes to the scheme which are aimed at rebuilding trust and addressing the issues encountered in previous iterations of the scheme. The changes seek to establish clearer rules, provide defined budgets and allow for more transparent access.
As part of this, SFI26 has been streamlined, resulting in the total number of available actions being reduced from 102 to 71. It’s hoped that this will help to simplify the scheme and ensure that funds are targeted towards the most effective actions.
Additionally, a number of payment rates are also set to be reduced, in order to limit areas of highly productive land being taken out of food production. These include:
- CSAM3 Herbal Leys: £382/ha to £224/ha
- CAHL2 Winter Bird Food: £853/ha to £648/ha
- CNUM3 Legume Fallow: £593/ha to £532/ha
Importantly, these changes to will not apply to those with existing SF23 or SFI24 agreements in place but will affect anyone applying for a new SFI26 agreement.
The SFI management payment will also no longer be available, having originally been offered as a contribution towards the costs associated with entering and participating in the scheme.
A funding limit is also set to be introduced to help more participants to access the funds available. A payment cap of £100,000 per farm per year will apply, limiting the maximum agreement value to £300,000 across the 3-year term, with agreements also being limited to one per farm business.
The introduction of two application windows, should also help make the scheme more accessible to smaller farms (between 3 and 50 ha) and new entrants (those without an existing SFI or Countryside Stewardship agreement in place). The first application window, which is due to open in June 2026, will be exclusively available to these two groups. The second application window will then open to all farmers in September.
Aside from these changes outlined above, the structure of the scheme is set to remain largely the same, with agreement lengths being set for a period of 3 years and payments being made on a quarterly basis. Agreement holders will also still be required to submit an annual declaration prior to the last instalment in each agreement year being paid.
The majority of actions also remain unchanged, including:
- CIMP4 – No use of insecticide on arable crops and permanent crops: £45 /ha
- CLIG3 – Manage grassland with very low nutrient inputs: £151 /ha
- CHRW2 – Manage Hedgerows: £13 per 100m (one side)
- CSAM2 – Multi-species winter cover crops: £129 /ha
In advance of both application windows opening, it’s important to prepare ahead of time as the scheme is once again expected to be highly competitive. A crucial step towards this is ensuring that your RPA land maps are up to date and that each field parcel has been registered with the correct land cover.
You should also request and review the Historic Environment Farm Environment Record (HEFER) associated with your holding, which records any non-designated historic and archaeological (SHINE) features affecting your land. This can be significant as a number of actions aren’t eligible on land parcels containing SHINE features, so it’s important to review this beforehand to avoid encountering issues with your application.
If you are considering applying for funding to any of the upcoming schemes and require support, or would like to discuss the options available to you then please contact our Rural Teams who will be happy to assist.
By Peter Osborne
