Brown & Co: Defra have announced that applications for the new rollout of the SFI will begin in August.

After a long wait the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra) has finally announced more details on the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) . The details were unveiled by Rt Hon Mark Spencer on the Brown&Co stand at the Lincolnshire Show. These new standards include 23 actions, with quarterly payments and the promise of being more ‘simple and flexible’ for farmers.

Schemes will last for three years, with opportunities to apply for the next set of standards when they are published in 2024. Payments under the scheme will be paid in quarterly instalments with the first payment made four months after your agreement starts. The SFI 2023 offer now includes a management payment of £20/ha for the first 50 ha included in a SFI agreement.

There are a mix of rotational and static options with the possibility of varying the coverage of the rotational options, so they work with your crop rotation and different sizes of parcels. You can increase and decrease your areas – as long as it’s within 50% of the original area applied for.

All SFI applications for the arable and horticultural soil standard are now closed and this standard will not be included going forwards. The old arable and horticultural soil standard was a percentage cover option, with strict rules about overlap.

Anyone with an existing SFI scheme or who have previously applied for the arable and horticultural soil standard will be contacted by Defra to ensure that they do not lose out, but the RPA have not explained what this means.

The new Soils standard offers more flexibility with other agri-environmental scheme overlap, meaning you can receive payment for SAM1 to overlap with some options under Countryside Stewardship (CSS). In general, the payment rates for all SFI options are very similar to the equivalent options under CSS.

The options you can apply for under the SFI 2023 are listed in the table below, it is also indicated if they can be rotational or static and whole or part parcel.

If you have any questions about the Sustainable Farming Incentive, it’s interactions with other schemes or Countryside Stewardship please contact your local Brown&Co office.