The Sustainable Farming Incentive

Hannah Lukins of Stags Professional Services outlines the standards, payment rates and further details of the Sustainable Farming Incentive, for which applications will open in June 2022.

The Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) is the first release of the three new environmental schemes being introduced in the agricultural transition plan. Farmers will be paid for carrying out land management activities which contribute towards meeting a ‘standard’, designed to improve environmental outcomes and sustainable food production.

In June 2022, the SFI is releasing three soil standards for applications into a 3-year agreement, which can be amended every 12 months to upgrade to a higher level, add land or take advantage of new standards being released in the coming years. The SFI is flexible to run alongside other grant funding and schemes, as long as the measures do not lead to ‘double funding’.

The three soil standards and levels available this year are:

Arable and Horticultural Soils Standard
	Introductory Level	Intermediate Level	Advanced Level
Payment rate	£22/Ha	£40/Ha	TBC
Introductory Level Actions 1. Complete a Soil Assessment and Soil Management Plan To be completed in the first 12 months and kept under review. The assessment and plan should identify and action priorities to improve soil structure, carbon storage and biology whilst avoiding and alleviating soil compaction. You can use the same Soil Management Plans as for the Red Tractor scheme. 2. Test Soil Organic Matter Soil Organic Matter (SOM) should be measured every 5 years (includes existing SOM test results) and can be tested alongside the standard nutrient and pH analysis that is required as part of the Farming Rules for Water. The cost of a SOM test on top of standard nutrient testing is approximately £8.50/sample. 3. Add Organic Matter At least once during the 3-year SFI standards agreement all land in the agreement must have Organic Matter added, by, for example: applying manure/other organic matter, incorporating chopped straw, growing green manures, catch crops or cover crops or the introduction of grass or herbal leys, legume species or legume-rich mixes into the arable rotation. 4. Establish Winter Cover Over winter, you must have a well-established green cover on at least 70% of the land. This includes winter cereals, cover crops or weedy stubbles with sufficient soil cover. Intermediate Level Actions - All the above, plus: 5. Establish Winter Cover Over winter, you must have a well-established green cover on at least 50% of the land and multi-species cover crops on an additional 20% of the land.

Improved Grassland Soils
	Introductory Level	Intermediate Level	Advanced Level
Payment rate	£28/Ha	£58/Ha	TBC
Introductory Level Actions 1. Complete a Soil Assessment and Soil Management Plan As above in the Arable and Horticultural Soils Standard. 2. Test Soil Organic Matter As above in the Arable and Horticultural Soils Standard. 3. Minimise Bare Ground No more than 5% of the total area of land entered into the standard left bare, or becomes bare, over winter (December-February). Intermediate Level Actions - All the above, plus: 4. Establish or Maintain Herbal Leys Establish or maintain herbal leys with a mixture of grasses, legumes, herbs and wildflowers on at least 15% of land in this level of the standard.

Moorland
	Introductory Level	Intermediate Level	Advanced Level
Payment rate	£10.30/Ha £265/agreement	TBC	TBC
Introductory Level Actions 1. Identify and record the soil and vegetation types and condition, and presence of historic and archaeological features. Each year you must take one sample in each 10 Ha block of land. 2. Assess the public goods the moorland is already providing. For example: Carbon storage, water storage and flow, biodiversity, heritage etc. 3. Identify opportunities to maintain or enhance the public goods provided by the moorland. Using action 1 and 2 to produce a record and to keep it under annual review.

Proposed new standards as the scheme evolves are as follows:

In 2023, we can expect the addition of:

· Nutrient management standard

· Integrated pest management standard

· Hedgerows standard

· Advanced levels of the 2 soil standards

In 2024, we can expect the addition of:

· Agroforestry standard

· Low and no input grassland standard

· Water body buffering standard

· Farmland biodiversity standard

· Intermediate and advanced levels of the moorland standard

In 2025, we can expect the addition of:

· Organic standard

· On-farm woodland standard

· Orchards and specialise horticulture standard

· Heritage standard

· Dry stone walls standard

Separate to the above, another part of the SFI to be released in 2022 is a payment for livestock farmers towards an annual health and welfare review by a vet of their choice. To be eligible you need to meet the requirements for BPS and keep more than 10 cattle, 20 sheep or 50 pigs.

Payment Rates are as follows;

· £684 for a pig review

· £436 for a sheep review

· £522 for a beef cattle review

· £372 for a dairy cattle review

If you would like to discuss any aspect of the Sustainable Farming Scheme (SFI) or any of the other schemes being offered by DEFRA then contact a member of Stags Professional Services team on 01823 653424.

News

The Sustainable Farming Incentive