Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) 2023 details launched

The government has formally opened the full version of the 2023 Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) for England.

The headlines are that SFI 2023 is bigger, more flexible and should be easier to apply for.

With 23 actions available, it covers existing themes like soil health and moorland, and introduces new actions on hedgerows, integrated pest management, nutrient management, farmland wildlife, buffer strips, and low input grassland.

Payment rates range from £10 per 100m for managing one side of a hedgerow, to £129/ha for multi-species cover crops, and £589 for a nutrient management review.

It is a major element of the government’s plan to deliver the targets it has set for nature recovery under the Environmental Improvement Plan.

Land managers will welcome the freedom to decide what suits their land; with that choice comes a fat handbook but we like the way the options have been laid out to show what can be done on different land types.

Tenant farmers will benefit from shorter agreement lengths that do not require landlord consent.

However, environmental organisations will be watching scheme take up and the combinations of options selected carefully to see whether this will deliver real environmental benefits at scale across the country, given their previous concerns about whether Entry Level Stewardship delivered meaningful environmental outcomes.

The dice has been rolled…

What’s on offer?

• There are now 23 ‘actions’ on offer – twice the number originally planned.
• Each action has a number of different ‘sub-actions’ and managers can choose their own combination of actions in a ‘pick and mix’ structure.
• SFI actions and Countryside Stewardship (CS) options can be combined on the same parcels if the land is eligible for both schemes and the actions are compatible.
• Payments rates are in line with similar options within CSS. For example, the SAM3 herbal leys option under SFI matches the same payment as GS4 available under Countryside Stewardship (£382/ha) and is expected to be an attractive option to farmers.
• There is a management payment of £20/ha for the first 50 hectares to cover participation costs.
• For tenant farmers there are shorter agreement lengths that do not require landlord consent.
• There is a payment to cover one on-farm vet visit each year to review the health and welfare of livestock.
• There is no minimum or maximum land area or hedgerow length.
• The same payment rates now apply for farms in upland and lowland areas.

The application process

• There is a new 150-page SFI Handbook giving farmers all the detail they need in a single document.
• It is accompanied by sector-specific guides that show what options are available for each farm type.
• The smart online application tool will only show applicants the options available to their farm.
• Applications will start to be accepted through a controlled rollout beginning in August.
• There is a new 162-page SFI Handbook giving farmers all the detail they need in a single document.
• It is accompanied by sector-specific guides that show what options are available for each farm type.
• The smart online application tool will only show applicants the options available to their farm.
• Applications will start to be accepted through a controlled rollout process which opened on 18 September 2023. Anyone who is interested in joining the scheme needs to register their interest first by filling in this form. The RPA will then invite people to make a full application. 
• Payments will generally be made every three months, although to aid cash flow farmers who have a live 2023 agreement before the end of the year, will receive an accelerated payment — worth 25% of the value of their agreement — in the first month of their agreement.
• SFI 2022 is now closed to applications and land managers who signed up for SFI 2022 will be able to transfer to the 2023 offer. The RPA will make contact to discuss options.

Summary of the SFI actions in the SFI 2023 offer

This blog post was updated on 18 September 2023 to reflect the latest information available from Defra.