Minister for Food Security and Rural Affairs (): With record numbers of
farm businesses in farming schemes and the sustainable farming
budget successfully allocated, yesterday the Government has
stopped accepting new applications for the Sustainable Farming
Incentive (SFI24).
Our Environmental Land Management schemes will remain in place,
including SFI, and there will be a new and improved SFI offer
with more information in summer 2025.
Every penny in all existing SFI24 agreements will be paid to
farmers, and outstanding eligible applications that have been
submitted will also be taken forward.
Our vision is for a sector with food production at its core
because food security is national security. We want farm
businesses to be more resilient to shocks and disruption, and an
agricultural sector that recognises restoring nature is not in
competition with sustainable food production but is essential to
it.
By pursuing these principles, we will support farm businesses to
be more profitable, addressing the underlying problem that some
farmers do not make enough money for the hard work they put in.
This Government inherited farming schemes which were underspent,
meaning millions of pounds were not going to farming businesses.
This Government is proud to have secured the largest budget for
sustainable food production in our country's history, with £5
billion over a 2-year period to sustainable farming and nature
recovery.
We have left no stone unturned in our determination to get
farmers into our Environmental Land Management schemes. As a
result, we now have a record number of farmers in these schemes
with more than 50,000 farm businesses and more than half of all
farmed land now being managed under our schemes.
The largest of these schemes, SFI, now has more than 37,000 live
agreements in place. It is not only delivering sustainable food
production and nature's recovery for today and the years ahead,
but it is also putting money back into farm businesses.
However, this Government inherited an uncapped scheme aimed at
mass participation of farm businesses, despite a finite farming
budget. The high level of participation in SFI means we have now
reached the upper limit.
Now is the right time for a reset: supporting farmers, delivering
for nature and targeting public funds fairly and effectively
towards our priorities for food, farming and nature.
We will take forward any submitted SFI application where the
agreement has not yet started. If farmers have already submitted
an application, they will receive an agreement. If farmers are in
the SFI Pilot, they will be able to apply when the pilot
agreement ends.
The reformed and improved SFI will:
- deliver our vision of a sector with food production at its
core, supporting less resilient farm businesses while ensuring
nature recovery
- ensure we deliver value for money for taxpayers as we invest
in sustainable food production and nature recovery
- have a clear budget set and put in place strong budgetary
controls so that SFI is affordable
- better target SFI actions fairly and effectively, focusing on
helping less productive land contribute to our priorities for
food, farming and nature.
As we evolve the scheme, we will listen to farmers' feedback to
ensure we learn and improve for the future.
Our improved SFI scheme will be another step in this Government's
New Deal for Farmers to support growth and return farm businesses
to profitability. In recent weeks we have already:
- extended the Seasonal Worker Visa Scheme for 5 years.
- outlined plans to back British produce across the public
estate.
- protected farmers in trade deals.
- invested £110 million in farming grants to improve
productivity, trial new technologies and drive innovation in the
sector.
- made the supply chain fairer, including new regulations for
the pig sector by the end of this month.
- invested over £200 million in a new National Biosecurity
Centre to protect livestock from diseases.
The Government is committed to working with farmers and farm
organisations to ensure future policies deliver in the best
interests of farming for the long term. For instance, we are
developing the first-ever long-term Farming Roadmap to understand
the barriers facing farmers and identify ways to reform the
farming budget so that it can best deliver for food production
and the environment.
The Land Use Framework will guarantee our long-term food security
and future-proof our farm businesses, supporting economic growth
on the limited land we have available.
I will be making an oral statement on this subject later today.
