UK Agriculture: Sustainable Farming Incentive Payments Reach £1 Billion Mark
The Sustainable Farming Incentive, the post-Brexit replacement for the EU’s area-based farm payments in England, has paid more than £1 billion to English farmers since its launch, reaching a milestone that the government cited as evidence that the transition to a new model of agricultural support was gaining traction. The scheme pays farmers for delivering specific environmental outcomes — improved soil health, wildlife habitat creation, reduced pesticide use, water quality improvements and carbon sequestration — rather than simply for owning or farming land.
The philosophical shift from production-based to outcomes-based agricultural support has been central to the agricultural policy reform that began in earnest following Brexit. Under the old EU Common Agricultural Policy, the majority of payments were tied to the area of land farmed with limited conditions attached. The new English model attempts to use public money to purchase public goods — environmental improvements, biodiversity enhancement, landscape management — that the market would not otherwise deliver.
Take-up of the Sustainable Farming Incentive has accelerated as farmers have become more familiar with the available actions and the payment rates, and as the transition away from the old Basic Payment Scheme — which is being progressively phased out — creates a financial imperative to engage with the new funding streams. The farming press and agricultural advisers have played a significant role in helping farmers understand the options available and structure their applications to maximise the payments they can access.
Critics of the scheme, including some farming organisations, argued that the payment rates for many actions remained too low to compensate for the management costs and income foregone from the land committed to environmental delivery. They called for higher rates and greater flexibility in how the scheme’s requirements could be met on farms with particular geographical or structural characteristics.
