Sustainable Farming Incentive: full guidance
Guidance about how the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) will work for farmers.
Applies to England
Documents
Details
The Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) is the first of 3 new environmental schemes being introduced under the Agricultural Transition Plan. The other 2 schemes are Local Nature Recovery and Landscape Recovery.
SFI aims to help farmers manage land in a way that improves food production and is more environmentally sustainable.
Farmers will be paid to provide public goods, such as:
- improved water quality
- biodiversity
- climate change mitigation
- animal health and welfare
In 2022, SFI aims to:
- encourage actions that improve soil health
- recognise how moorland provides benefits to the public (public goods)
- improve animal health and welfare by helping farmers with the costs of veterinary advice for livestock
Last updated
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Added link to RPA query form
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Published updates including: when you will be able to apply for an agreement, how to view common land information, SSSIs, commons eligibility, how an SFI standards agreement interacts with Environmental Stewardship and Countryside Stewardship (clarification about rotational options), annual declarations and upgrading SFI standards agreement, terms and conditions, ‘how to’ guides for the standards
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Updated SFI scheme information.
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Corrected to explain that land parcels entered into standards agreements should be tested for soil organic matter within 5 years (previously stated 3 years).
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Corrected typos. Added links. Clarified that SFI HEFER is not available until SFI applications open. Under "How an SFI standards agreement interacts with other funding schemes": 2 paragraphs removed about private sector schemes and deleted all information on other funding schemes.
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Clarified timings of the soil organic matter retesting in the two soils standards.
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First published.