Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) Scheme Options

What does SFI mean?

One of the issues that has caused some of the confusion with the new schemes is the dazzling number of acronyms being thrown around. ELMs, SFI, LR, and others, are not always helpful when trying to understand something as important as how you and your family will continue to make a living and how food production and environmental protection is to be funded. 

So, what do these actually stand for and are they just different names for the same thing? Or, are they different schemes and if so, what do they include? 

ELMs stands for Environmental Land Management schemes and rather than being a single scheme in its own right, it is an umbrella term used to describe the range of schemes that have replaced BPS. 
According to the government, ELMs consists of the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) scheme, Countryside Stewardship (CS), and the Land Recovery scheme (LR). 

SFI is the main scheme that replaces BPS. Under it, farmers and land managers with a ‘management control’ of the land, can apply for funding in exchange for taking up or maintaining farming practices that: 

• Protect and benefit the environment
• Support food production
• Improve productivity

Countryside Stewardship (CS) will be a lot more familiar to UK farmers as it harks back to the original Countryside Stewardship scheme of old which ended in 2020. 

The new and updated version provides financial incentives for farmers, foresters and land managers to look after and improve the environment by:

• Increasing biodiversity
• Improving habitat
• Expanding woodland areas
• Improving water quality
• Improving air quality
• Improving natural flood management

The Land Recovery (LR) scheme supports large-scale, long-term land use change and is open not just to farmers but public sector bodies with suitable land available. 

Projects are expected to last 20 years or more and include very large areas of land, so whereas the scheme is open to you, the timescales and amounts of land required to access payments might make it impractical. 

How does SFI work? 

As SFI is the main scheme replacing BPS, the rest of this article is dedicated to taking a closer look at what the scheme entails and how to access it.  

SFI was launched in 2023 and has been updated for this year, but more on that later. It is administered by the Rural Payments Agency (RPA) and as a result, if you want to access it you must apply to the RPA. A successful application is called entering into an SFI agreement and these usually last three years, but can last as long as five years depending on what activities you select to carry out on your land.

At its most basic, SFI pays you to adopt or maintain farming methods that produce environmental benefits, particularly those that improve soil health, enhance biodiversity, prevent water run-off and combat flooding in extreme weather events. 

You can choose from a long list of environmentally friendly farming practices which are called SFI actions, and the level of funding you receive is based on the actions you choose. 

However, for an application to be successful, both you and your land must fulfil certain criteria. 

For example, you must have the ‘management control’ over the land you want enter into an SFI agreement. 

For your land to be eligible, it must be an eligible land type (more on this later), be entirely within England, and be registered with the RPA with the appropriate cover so they can check your application against their records. 

Multiple SFI actions can be applied to the same area of land as long as they are complimentary to each other and do not lead to double funding – being paid twice for similar activities. 

Equally, land that is entered into other schemes such as Countryside Stewardship or Environmental Stewardship can be entered into an SFI agreement providing the SFI action does not require activity that is incompatible with CS or ES activities.  

Applying to the SFI scheme

To apply for an SFI agreement, you no longer need to register your interest with the RPA. Farmers and landowners in England can now apply directly online for the expanded 2024 SFI offer and no longer need to wait for the invitation from the Rural Payments Agency.

Once the agreement is in place, you will receive a document setting out: 

• A summary of payments, including the total annual payment value, any additional payments, and the indicative SFI management payment
• An annual payment schedule

Under an SFI agreement, the annual payment value is paid in quarterly instalments with the first payment made in the fourth month after the agreement’s start date.

Unlike previous agri-environment schemes such as CS, you do not have to submit an annual revenue claim to receive payment.

Eligible land types

As mentioned earlier, for land to be successfully entered into the SFI scheme, it must be eligible land as defined by DEFRA. Also, the land type must be appropriate for the specific SFI action you are proposing to carry out on it.

According to DEFRA, eligible land includes:

• Arable land
• Permanent crops
• Permanent grassland
• Moorland

Arable land

Under the SFI scheme, arable land refers to:

• Combinable crops
• Root crops
• Crops grown for animal feed, such as forage rape
• Field vegetables and cut flowers
• Bulbs or soft fruit which are not ‘permanent crops’
• Fallow land that’s available for crop production
• Temporary grassland – this is often part of an arable crop rotation and has usually been grassland for less than five consecutive years
• Improved grassland (as defined under improved permanent grassland)
• Low input grassland (as defined under low input (semi-improved and unimproved) permanent grassland)

You can also claim for managing arable land to create or restore species-rich grassland.

Permanent crops

Permanent crops are non-rotational and must:

• Occupy the land for five years or more
• Provide repeated harvests (other than permanent grassland)
  
  

Under the scheme, they can be:

• Horticultural permanent crops, including commercial orchards, bush fruits, hops and vines, and;
• Non-horticultural permanent crops, including miscanthus, reed canary grass, nursery crops and short rotation coppice.
  
  

Permanent grassland

Under the SFI scheme, permanent grassland is defined as land used to grow grass for five consecutive years or more that’s not been included in an arable crop rotation. It can either be improved or low input.

Moorland

Moorland includes permanent grassland and certain non-agricultural features, such as scrub, scree, bracken and bog, which are above the moorland line.

The vegetation of moorland areas is usually:

• Semi-natural moorland habitats including heathland, blanket bog, rough acid grasslands, rushy flushes, swamps, mires and bracken
• Upland calcareous grassland.

SFI actions

To earn money under the SFI scheme, you must select from a huge range of SFI actions – environmentally-friendly faming practices – to carry out on their land.

There are two types of SFI action; those that can be applied for without specialist advice or prior endorsement – these constitute the vast majority of actions – and  ‘endorsed’ actions, which apply to priority habitats or species or those with heritage features.

To qualify for an SFI agreement, the SFI actions must be matched to the land type – i.e. only arable actions will qualify to be undertaken on arable land. These will be different to the actions that are appropriate for other land uses such as permanent grassland or moorland.

2024 updates to the SFI scheme

The SFI scheme launched in 2023 but was updated in 2024 after feedback from a pilot scheme.

A major change introduced in 2024 was removing the link between SFI eligibility and farmers who formerly received BPS, which opened up the scheme to new entrants.

Other important changes include that both CNUM3 legume fallow and CSAM3 herbal leys have been made rotational, and that new actions have been introduced for agroforest tree planting.

The update also clarified that from September 2024 it will be possible to end existing Mid-Tier Countryside Stewardship and Higher Level Stewardship agreements early, to apply for the SFI.

However, timing with this is critical. Stopping an agreement before the end of the current agreement year means sacrificing payment for the part of the year completed.

Full payment will only be received if the timing coincides with the end of the current agreement year.

Finally, and less positively, the 2024 update confirmed that new land and actions cannot be added to an existing SFI agreement on its anniversary. Instead, additional land would need to be the subject of a new agreement.

As well as these changes, to protect to food security, the government has restricted a number of actions to just 25% of the land area of a farm. These include:

• CIPM2: Flower-rich grass margins, blocks, or in-field strips
• CAHL1: Pollen and nectar flower mix
• CAHL2: Winter bird food on arable and horticultural land
• CAHL3: Grassy field corners or blocks
• CIGL1: Take improved grassland field corners or blocks out of management
• CIGL2: Winter bird food on improved grassland
• WBD3: In-field grass strips
• AHW1: Bumblebird mix
• AHW9: Unharvested cereal headland
• AHW11: Cultivated areas for arable plants

There are also an additional four actions being kept under review and may be added to the restricted list at a future date.

These are:

• AHW3: Beetle banks
• AHW5: Nesting plots for lapwing
• AHW12: Manage woodland edges on arable land
• SCR1: Create scrub and open habitat mosaics

SFI options

In total, there are more than 100 different SFI actions you can choose from across 14 different areas including:

• Agroforestry
• Boundary features
• Buffer strips
• Wildlife on arable and horticultural land
• Wildlife and habitats on grassland
• Heritage
• Integration pest management
• Moorland
• Nutrient management
• Organic farming
• Precision farming
• Species recovery and management
• Soil health
• Waterbodies

Additional payment are also available for common land an SFI management payment.

The full list of SFI actions includes:

Agroforestry

• AGF1 – Maintain very low density in-field agroforestry on less sensitive land
• AGF2 – Maintain low density in-field agroforestry on less sensitive land

Boundary features

• CHRW1 – Assess and record hedgerow condition
• CHRW2 – Manage hedgerows
• CHRW3 – Maintain or establish hedgerow trees
• BND1 – Maintain dry stone walls
• BND2 – Maintain earth banks or stone-faced earth banks

Buffer strips

• CHAL4 – 4m – 12m grass buffer strip on arable and horticultural land
• CIGL3 – 4m – 12m grass buffer on improved grassland
• BFS1 – 12m – 24m watercourse buffer strip cultivated land
• BFS2 – Buffer in-field ponds on arable land
• BFS3 – Buffer in-field ponds on improved grassland
• BFS4 – Protect in-field trees on arable land
• BFS5 – Protect in-field trees on intensive grassland
• BFS6 – 6m – 12m habitat strip next to watercourses

Farmland wildlife on arable and horticultural land

• CAHL1 – Pollen and nectar flower mix
• CAHL2 – Winter bird food on arable and horticultural land
• CAHL3 – Grassy field corners or blocks
• AHW1 – Bumblebird mix
• AHW2 – Supplementary winter bird food
• AHW3 – Beetle banks
• AHW4 – Skylark plots
• AHW5 – Nest plots for lapwing
• AHW6 – Basic overwinter stubble
• AHW7 – Enhanced overwinter stubble
• AHW8 – Whole crop spring cereals and overwinter stubble
• AHW9 – Unharvested cereal headland
• AHW10 – Low input harvested cereal crop
• AHW11 – Cultivated areas for arable plants
• AHW12 – Manage woodland edges on arable land

Farmland wildlife and habitats on grassland

• CIGL1 – Take grassland field corners or block out of management
• CIGL2 – Winter bird food on improved grassland
• CIGL3 – Manage grassland with very low nutrient inputs
• GRH1 – Manage rough grazing for birds
• GRH6 – Manage priority habitat species-rich grassland
• GRH7 – Supplement: Haymaking
• GRH8 – Supplement: Haymaking (late cut)
• GRH10 – Supplement: Lenient grazing
• GRH11 – Supplement: Cattle grazing (non-moorland)
• SCR1 – Create scrub and open habitat mosaic
• SCR2 – Manage scrub and open habitat mosaic

Heritage

• HEF1 – Maintain weatherproof traditional farm or forestry building
• HEF2 – Maintain weatherproof traditional farm or forestry building in remote areas
• HEF5 – Control scrub on historic and archaeological features
• HEF6 – Manage historic and archaeological features on grassland
• HEF8 – Maintain designed or engineered watercourses

Integrated Pest Management

• CIPM1 – Assess integrated pest management and make a plan
• CIPM2 – Flower-rich grass margins, blocks or in-field strips
• CIPM3 – Companion crop on arable horticultural land
• CIPM4 – No use of insecticide on arable crops or permanent crops

Moorland

• CMOR1 – Assess moorland and produce a written record
• UPL1 – Moderate livestock grazing on moorland
• UPL2 – Low livestock grazing on moorland
• UPL3 – Limited livestock grazing on moorland
• UPL4 – Supplement: Keep cattle and ponies on moorland (minimum 30% GLU)
• UPL5 – Supplement: Keep cattle and ponies on moorland (minimum 70% GLU)
• UPL6 – Supplement: Keep cattle and ponies on moorland (minimum 100% GLU)
• UPL7 – Shepherding livestock on moorland (no required stock removal period)
• UPL8 – Shepherding livestock on moorland (remove stock for at least four months)
• UPL9 – Shepherding livestock on moorland (remove stock for at least six months)
• UPL10 – Shepherding livestock on moorland (remove stock for at least eight months)

Nutrient management

• CNUM1 – Assessment nutrient management and produce a review report
• CNUM2 – Legumes on improved grassland
• CNUM3 – Legume fallow

Organic farming

• OFC1 – Organic conversion – improved permanent grassland
• OFC2 – Organic conversion – unimproved permanent grassland
• OFC3 – Organic conversion – rotational land
• OFC4 – Organic conversion – horticultural land
• OFC5 – Organic conversion – top fruit
• OFM1 – Organic land management – improved permanent grassland
• OFM2 – Organic land management – unimproved permanent grassland
• OFM3 – Organic land management – rotational land
• OFM4 – Organic land management – horticultural land
• OFM5 – Organic land management – top fruit
• OFA1 – Overwinter stubble (organic land)
• OFA3 – Supplementary winter bird food (organic land)

Precision farming

• PRF1 – Variable rate application of nutrients
• PRF2 – Camera or remote sensor guided herbicide spraying
• PRF3 – Non-mechanical robot weeding
• PRF4 – Mechanical robot weeding

Species recovery and management

• SPM2 – Supplement: Keep native breeds on grazed habitats (50-80%)
• SPM3 – Supplement: Keep native breeds on grazed habitats (more than 80%)
• SPM4 – Supplement: Keep native breeds on extensively managed habitats (50-80%)
• SPM5 – Supplement: Keep native breeds on extensively managed habitats (more than 80%)

Soil health

• CSAM1 – Assess soil, produce a soil management plan and test soil organic matter
• CSAM2 – Multi-species winter cover crop
• CSAM3 – Herbal leys
• SOH1 – No-till farming
• SOH2 – Multi-species spring-sown cover crop
• SOH3 – Multi-species summer-sown cover crop
• SOH4 – Winter cover following maize crop

Waterbodies

• WBD1 – Manage ponds
• WBD2 – Manage ditches
• WBD3 – In-field grass strips
• WBD4 – Arable reversion to grassland with low fertiliser input
• WBD5 – Manage intensive grassland adjacent to a watercourse
• WBD6 – Remove livestock from intensive grassland during autumn and winter (outside SDAs)
• WBD7 – Remove livestock from grassland during autumn and winter (outside SDAs)
• WBD8 – Manage grassland to reduce nutrient levels in groundwater
• WBD9 – Supplement: Nil fertiliser.