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The Department for Environment Food & Rural Affairs (Defra) has recently opened expressions of interest for a trial of the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI). It is intended that the SFI will be open to all Basic Payment Scheme claimants next year as the first step in the move towards the new Environmental Land Management Scheme (ELMS). Defra wants to trial parts of the SFI this year with several hundred farmers from different parts of the country and with different types and sizes of farms.

SFI will pay farmers for sustainable management practices above the regulatory baseline. There will be a number of standards from which farmers can choose actions which are best suited to their particular farm.

In the first phase of the pilot, farmers will choose from eight standards to build up an agreement. The standards and payments available under the first phase of the trial are as follows:

Standard	Initial base rates (first phase of pilot only)
Arable and horticultural land standard	from £28 up to £74 per hectare
Arable and horticultural soils standard	from £30 up to £59 per hectare
Improved grassland standard	from £27 up to £97 per hectare
Improved grassland soils standard	from £6 up to £8 per hectare
Low and no input grassland standard	from £22 up to £110 per hectare
Hedgerow standard	from £16 up to £24 per 100 metres
On farm woodland standard	£49 per hectare
Waterbody buffering standard	from £16 up to £34 per 100 metres

There will also be a participation payment made to all participants.

Within each standard in the pilot there will be three levels with increasing requirements and payments as you go up the levels. For example, under the Arable and Horticultural Land Standard, the actions and payments under each level are as follows:

Introductory level (£28 per hectare)	Intermediate level (£54 per hectare). All actions in the introductory level plus	Advanced level (£74 per hectare). All actions in the introductory and intermediate levels plus
Provide year-round resources for farmland birds and insects	Improve nutrient use efficiency and reduce loses to the environment by carrying out a nutrient budget	Provide nesting and shelter for wildlife by having areas of tall vegetation and scrub
Better meet your soil requirements by following a nutrient management plan	Increase habitat for farm and aquatic wildlife through rotational ditch management	Benefit from crop pest predators by locating their habitats next to cropped areas
Minimise emissions of ammonia through rapid incorporation of organic manures and slurry on ploughed land	Better target your nutrient application by carrying out soil mapping	Use efficient precision application equipment for fertilisers and organic manures

To be eligible for the trial, farmers must be claiming BPS and the pilot cannot be on parcels already in an agri-environment scheme (Higher Level Stewardship or Countryside Stewardship). They must have management control of the land until late 2024 and the land cannot be part of a common. Payments will be made monthly and those in the trial will still receive their payment under the Basic Payment Scheme as usual.

To be considered for the pilot, farmers must make an expression of interest, either via the Rural Payments Agency’s online system or a paper form. Those selected for the pilot will be informed in June 2021 and invited to submit an application. Applications will be processed during the summer with the first agreements going live in October.

If you would like to discuss the pilot further or make an expression of interest, please contact Andrew Jenkinson on 01280 818905 or email abrj@robinsonandhall.co.uk or Polly Sewell on 01234 362933 or email pkts@robinsonandhall.co.uk.

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