The UK Government has released data that shows the take-up of the Sustainable Farming Incentive as of October 2024.
The Sustainable Farming Incentive scheme 2023 (SFI23) was launched in October 2023. Data on uptake of this scheme was first published in April 2024 and is published quarterly. The scheme closed to new applications in June 2024 and was succeeded by the Sustainable Farming Incentive Expanded Offer. This is the first release to contain data from both schemes.
Key points:
- At 1st October 2024, there were 26,200 active Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) agreements in England.
- This is a 13 per cent increase in the number of agreements since July 2024.
- The ITL2 areas with the highest SFI uptake are Devon, East Anglia and North Yorkshire. Uptake is lowest in ITL2 regions with large urban areas – London, the West Midlands, Merseyside and Greater Manchester.
- The most popular SFI actions, excluding the management payment, are planning actions (SAM1, IPM1, NUM1, HRW1). See here for detail on SFI actions.
- The action covering the most land area in SFI is ‘Assess soil, produce a soil management plan and test soil organic matter’ (SAM1 and CSAM1), covering 2,942,900ha. This is 34 per cent of the utilised agricultural area (UAA) of England.
- Excluding planning actions, the action covering the most land area in SFI is ‘No use of insecticide, nematicide or acaricide on arable crops and permanent crops’ (IPM4 and CIPM4), covering 727,800 hectares.
- There are 265,900 hectares of land in options that temporarily take land out of production. This is 3 per cent of utilised agricultural area, compared to 1.7 per cent in April 2024.