Increased government funding to boost farming productivity

• More than £168m to drive innovation, improve productivity and support animal health and welfare through greener equipment, robotics and automation.  
• Funding will sit alongside Environmental Land Management schemes to support sustainable food production while protecting our natural environment  
• Farming Minister announces plans for funding for smaller abattoirs, helping to improve productivity and animal health and welfare through reduced journey times to slaughter. 

More than £168 million in grants will be available to farmers this year to drive innovation, support food production, improve animal health and welfare and protect the environment. 

Speaking at the National Farmers’ Union conference in Birmingham, Farming Minister Mark Spencer will set out how the grants will drive the development of new technology and innovative ways of farming, with a focus on practical solutions that advance food productivity and deliver significant environmental and animal welfare benefits. 

These could include robotic technology to support with harvesting, handling equipment and cow mattresses to help prevent lameness in dairy cattle, sensors on tractors to measure the levels of nutrients in soils, or improvements to slurry storage - to further the efforts of farmers aiming to minimise their fertiliser use, and in turn reduce water and air pollution.  

The grants, delivered through the Farming Innovation Programme (FIP) and Farming Investment Fund(FIF), will sit alongside the Environmental Land Management schemes which pay farmers for a diverse range of actions such as managing hedgerows for wildlife, planting nectar-rich wildflowers and managing crop pests without the use of insecticides.   

Every year animal sickness, such as lameness in cattle, leads to the loss of thousands of livestock which in turn decreases productivity and contributes to farm emissions. New dedicated funding for annual vet-led health and welfare checks for livestock and money to support farmers implement improvements following these visits has been announced through the Animal Health and Welfare Pathway. Farmers interested in the vet visit can now register their interest.   

Taken together, these schemes and grants will help to deliver long-term sustainable food production and support farmers to halt and reverse the decline of nature as set out in the Environmental Improvement Plan.  

Speaking at the NFU conference, Farming Minister Mark Spencer said: 

“The role farmers play in putting food on our tables as well as looking after our countryside is crucial. We know that sustainable food production depends on a healthy environment, the two go hand in hand.  

“Helping farms invest in new technology as well as bringing in nature-friendly schemes will support the future of farming.”  

Today’s funding forms part of the government’s commitment to spend around £600 million on grants and other support for farmers to invest in productivity, animal health and welfare, innovation, research and development over three years, funded out of the £2.4 billion annual farming budget which is being maintained at its current level for the rest of this Parliament. 

It follows a series of significant announcements by the government on future farming policy in England.  

Since the start of the year, the government has set out detailed plans for the nation’s farming sector,supporting farmers to be profitable and resilient as they produce food sustainably while improving animal health and welfare and the environment upon which farming depends. This included accelerating the rollout of the Sustainable Farming Incentive, with six new standards for 2023, and setting out detail on what farmers will be paid to deliver through our enhanced Countryside Stewardship scheme.  

The government has increased payments to farmers for protecting and enhancing nature and delivering sustainable food production through both a Sustainable Farming Incentive Management Payment worth up to £1,000 per year per farm and increased payment rates through Countryside Stewardship.  

More than 2,000 farmers now have live agreements as part of the Sustainable Farming Incentive, while more than 32,000 farmers are signed up to Countryside Stewardship – a 94% increase since 2020.  

Support for smaller abattoirs  

The Government has also confirmed it plans to introduce funding to promote enhanced productivity, innovation and improved animal health and welfare in smaller abattoirs.  

Speaking at the NFU conference, Farming Minister Mark Spencer said:   

“If farming is to flourish then we need to get the fundamentals right - abattoirs are key to the food supply chain and there is clearly a need to support smaller providers in this area.   

“The availability of funding will help abattoirs to invest in new technology and improve productivity and animal health and welfare, allowing our agriculture sector to get its high-quality produce to market.”  

There has been a 20% reduction in the number of low-capacity abattoirs in the last decade. A network of smaller abattoirs distributed around the country is crucial to supporting the rural economy, enabling farmers to sell their own meat in farm shops and maintaining good animal health and welfare through reduced journey times to slaughter.   

At a recent roundtable, the minister met with the sector and discussed the issues they are facing. The new funding, to be announced in full later this year, will help those abattoirs to add value by supporting the availability of local produce, providing specific equipment to support the rearing of rare and native breeds, encouraging rural employment, and safeguarding the food supply chain through a diverse and productive abattoir sector.  

Jan Devos, a horticulturalist from Blue Ribbon Plants in Chichester, received a grant of over £3600 last year for a rainwater catching and filtration system. She said:  

"It's been great for cashflow and to move the business forward.  

“It’s really helped us to modernise and be a more sustainable operation.”  

Over £4800 was awarded to Richard Dew, a dairy and sheep farmer from Bude, to help purchase a plate heat exchanger for cooling milk, a mobile sheep handling system and a rotating cow brush.  

“The cow brush for my cattle has really helped improve the herd’s health and welfare for the better. 

“It means I am producing better product from my animals and it’s made a positive impact on my business.”  

ENDS  

FACTSHEET   

Farm innovation, productivity and animal health and welfare   

• The £168m investment will support farmers through 16 different grants and competitions around research and innovation. Last year’s funding through the FIP has supported projects such as CowView, a completely hands-free solution that will monitor a cow's welfare and performance without the need for wearable devices; a working herd of harvesting agri-robots, developed by Muddy Machines, able to harvest vegetables in-field sustainably and reliably; and Benchmark’s data-sharing solutions for farmers to support each other in measuring and monitoring soil health patterns.  
• Applications open today for productivity and slurry grants through the Farming Equipment and Technology Fund (FETF), which offers specific items of equipment to boost environmental sustainability, improve animal health and welfare, and reduce input usage, thereby cutting emissions and waste.  
• Following the first round, the list of items has been reviewed with farmers, vets, academics and industry groups. As a result, 19 new items to aid productivity and two items to help with better slurry management have been included for 2023. These include crop sprayers using precision camera guidance to remove weeds when spraying between rows of growing crops to help reduce herbicide usage.  
• The grants for 2023/24 increase the amount of money and range of actions on offer to farmers, building on the £31.5 million which has already been paid to more than 3,000 successful applicants in 2022/23.  
• Last year’s funding through the FETF has already delivered:  

• Over 600 direct drills for precision drilling crops, to the value of £12.4 million  
• Over 750 dribble bar and trailing shoe applicators for slurry, worth £5.3 million  
• Over 400 mobile sheep handling systems, worth £1.3 million  
• Over 40 tractor-mounted sensors, for measuring nitrogen levels in crops, worth £450,000   

• Next month, the FETF will see applications open for our new £20m Animal Health and Welfare grants – a key part of the Animal Health and Welfare Pathway. These grants, worth between £1,000 and £25,000, will go towards the cost of items to improve the health and welfare of livestock, such as livestock handling equipment to reduce lameness in sheep or cattle, sealed water tanks to improve biosecurity and reduce disease transmission in outdoor pigs, or an automated monitoring system and sensors in poultry housing to limit environmental stress by allowing adjustments to be made more quickly and efficiently.  
• Later in the year, there will be a further round of funding for investment in water storage (reservoirs) and improving irrigation, automation and robotics, and new funding to support upgrades or new housing that improves the ambient environment and social contact for calves.  

Environmental Land Management schemes (ELMs)   
   

• As government phases out the Basic Payment Scheme, which paid farmers based on how much land they held, new schemes are being introduced to pay farmers taking actions to benefit the environment and biodiversity.  
• The three Environmental Land Management schemes are intended to support the rural economy while achieving the goals of the 25 Year Environment Plan.  
• We have already opened our new Environmental Land Management schemes, the Sustainable Farming Incentive and Landscape Recovery, in addition to enhancing and expanding the existing Countryside Stewardship scheme.  
• They will help to deliver our ambitious outcomes for the environment and support a thriving food and farming sector – such as bringing 60% of England’s agricultural soil under sustainable management through our schemes by 2030 (through ELMs and the rest of our farming offer) and decarbonising agricultural emissions by up to a total of 6 MtCO2e per annum in Carbon Budget 6 (2033-37) in England.  

Sustainable Farming Incentive      

• In late June 2022, we launched the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) scheme.    
• SFI pays farmers to undertake sustainable management actions (going beyond regulatory requirements) alongside productive farming.    
• SFI is being rolled out incrementally. SFI actions are grouped into packages set out as ‘standards’.     
• Last month we announced full details on the SFI standards for 2023, with six new standards:  

• hedgerows standard - farmers will be paid to assess the condition of hedgerows and manage them in a way that will work for wildlife and improve biodiversity.      
• improved grassland standard (brought forward from 2024) - farmers will be paid for actions such as taking grassland out of management, managing grassland for winter bird food and establishing and maintaining buffer strips at the edge of fields – helping wildlife and biodiversity.      
• low input grassland standard (brought forward from 2024) - farmers will be paid to manage low input grassland to improve biodiversity, soil management and water quality.      
• arable and horticultural land standard (brought forward from 2024) - farmers will be paid for actions including establishing and maintaining areas of nectar-rich flower mix; establishing and maintaining flower-rich grass margins, blocks, or in-field strips; providing winter bird food; establishing and maintaining grassy field corners and blocks; and establishing and maintaining buffer strips.      
• integrated pest management standard - farmers will be paid to carry out an assessment and produce an integrated pest management plan; establishing and maintaining flower-rich grass margins, blocks, or in-field strips,  including payments for not using insecticides and for planting companion crops.     
• nutrient management standard – farmers will be paid to make an assessment and produce a report of their management of nutrients, helping to encourage them to understand how they are managing nutrients and to take further action to deliver environmental benefits (e.g. optimise the use of fertilisers to limit excess nutrients flowing into watercourses). In addition there are payments for those who incorporate legumes into the crop and grassland management  

• These are in addition to the three standards in place from the opening of the scheme in 2022:      

• Arable and horticultural soils standard (introductory and intermediate levels)       
• Improved grassland soils standard (introductory and intermediate levels)       
• Moorland standard (introductory level)     

• The full offer will be in place by 2025.  
• Farmers have already started applying with 2,491 applications submitted, 2,168 offers issued and 2,092 agreements started.  
• We’ve worked closely with the Tenant Farmers Association and SFI has been designed with tenant farmers firmly in mind:    
• more tenant farmers can access SFI than has been the case under our previous schemes.       
• this includes farmers with tenancies on a ‘rolling’ year-by-year basis who can enter that land into SFI – if they expect to have ‘management control’ of it for the 3-year duration of their SFI standards agreement.      
• Farmers are able to upgrade their SFI agreements annually, allowing them to add new standards (and more land) into their agreements. 

Countryside Stewardship 

• In December, the Secretary of State set out that we are going to evolve Countryside Stewardship rather than continuing to build Local Nature Recovery as a new scheme, but incorporating all of the original ambition. We will also use the feedback from working with stakeholders on policy development and through tests and trials carried out over the past few years.   
• Last month we announced what farmers will be paid to deliver through an enhanced version of the Countryside Stewardship scheme, which will see around 30 additional actions available to farmers by the end of 2024. The expansion builds on the more than 250 actions farmers can take at present.  
• The scheme will also be improved so farmers benefit from greater flexibility over when they can apply and how they manage their agreements, with improved access for tenant farmers and increased access to Higher Tier options and agreements.  
• Countryside Stewardship Plus will encourage the right things being done in the right places, enable local join-up to deliver bigger and better results and facilitate testing of innovative payment mechanisms, such as payment by results.         
• Countryside Stewardship will be a key vehicle for delivering significant and important outcomes for the climate and environment, alongside food production, that can only be delivered by farmers and in the wider countryside. These include:    

• creating, restoring, and continuing to protect wildlife-rich habitat    
• improving water quality    
• increasing resilience to flooding and drought    
• creating more new woodlands to increase tree and woodland cover, and encouraging management of existing woodlands    
• reducing carbon emissions, storing carbon and increasing resilience to climate change       

• We expect there to be 32,000 Countryside Stewardship agreements live at the start of 2023, a 94% increase from 2020.         
• In December 2022, there were over 11,000 live Countryside Stewardship agreements involving management of hedgerows, covering 58,000 kilometres of hedgerow, while more than 4,000 kilometres of hedgerows are in the process of being planted.     
• In 2022, there were 3,860 Countryside Stewardship Higher Tier agreements delivering environmental benefits (such as habitat creation, restoration or management) on our most important sites, including woodland management.     
• The next round of Countryside Stewardship Higher Tier opened on 8 February 2023 with Mid Tier and Wildlife Offer applications opening in March for agreements starting on 1 January 2024. Farmers and land managers can already apply for standalone capital works to support a range of activities including creating hedgerows or restoring stonewalls.         

Landscape Recovery 

• These longer-term, bespoke projects are a crucial part of our overall effort to deliver our environment and climate targets.       
• Our first round of 22 Landscape Recovery projects include projects involving tenants, and the majority involve groups of farmers working together to deliver a range of environmental benefits across farmed and rural landscapes.       
• Collectively, the projects aim to restore nearly 700km of rivers and protect and provide habitat for 263 species such as water vole, otter, pine marten, lapwing, great crested newt, European eel and marsh fritillary.       
• We will open applications for further rounds of Landscape Recovery in Spring this year and in 2024. Round two will focus on net zero, protected sites and habitat creation. This could include landscape scale projects creating and enhancing woodland, peatland, nature reserves and protected sites such as ancient woodlands, wetlands and salt marshes. We will take on up to 25 projects, depending on the quality of applications.    
• We will be providing more information in the coming weeks via a series of webinars, which we will encourage all potential applicants to attend.