The past few months have certainly been turbulent for farmers with an array of policy changes to get to grips with. Some of you have unfortunately missed out on Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) funding following the sudden closure of the scheme a few weeks back. More details on the mechanics of the upcoming SFI, which is supposed to open for applications in January 2026, are due to be released this summer. Please get in touch with our team who can help you navigate your ideas, advise on the options most suitable for your farming business and follow up application process for the scheme.
This is particularly relevant to those whose Countryside Stewardship (CS) Mid Tier (MT) is due to expire later this year. Now is a good time to start pulling your thoughts together for a replacement SFI to secure funding towards nature friendly farming.
Some farms are considering whether Higher Tier (HT) might be able to take the place of expiring CS MT agreements. A new online HT application process is being developed by the RPA which has yet to be tested. Previously higher tier had been reserved for the lucky few, often larger estates which are particularly well endowed with large areas of semi-natural habitat. It is unlikely many more typical farms will be able to get through the Natural England (NE) pipeline, as funds and staff resources are still limited, and NE don’t want to blow their budget on arable options which could be delivered through SFI.
However, in the face of uncertainty around SFI, it is worth exploring whether HT could be applied across the farmed landscape, as well as priority habitats such as heathland, fen, reedbed and ancient semi-natural woodland. If you have any area of this Priority Habitats which in need of management and are currently out of agreement, now is a good time to make enquiries about a new higher tier.
If this is something you’d like to be considered for, do let us know and we can speak to Natural England about assessing your HT potential. Natural England have developed a pipeline of HT applicants for 2025 based on scheme expiries, and also inviting some Higher Level Stewardship agreement holders into HT. Some of you will have taken the offer of an HLS extension, which runs until 2028. Unfortunately, the RPA have just informed us that land in HLS agreements won’t be able to be included in a HT application until the final HLS payment has been processed.
The actual mechanism by which an HLS scheme is ended is still unclear, FWAG & NE are pressuring the RPA to enable HLS agreements to transfer into a new HT with no repayments, as was possible in 2023.