Columnist, author and Wheat From The Chaff co-presenter, Joe Stanley, has responded to the news that the government has closed applications to the Sustainable Farming Incentive with immediate effect.
Stanley described the decision as having massive consequences. He said it was “A disaster not only for farm businesses and the rural economy, but also food security & our nature and climate targets.”
In a video blog on X, Stanley said, “I just wanted to outline the huge importance of what happened at last night, when government suspended entry into the Sustainable Farming Incentive – the nature friendly farming schemes that farmers have been encouraged to go into since Brexit.
“The last eight years we’ve been developing this scheme, with the intention of transitioning farms away to more nature and climate friendly farming.
“It was suspended last night with no notice, and that means at the moment where we stand here in England – and of course in the devolved nations they’re still utilising those old style EU payments, creating a huge competitive disadvantage even within the UK market – is that access to the Sustainable Farming Incentive is suspended; access to capital grant schemes to fund actions like hedgerow creation is suspended; access to the Countryside Stewardship Higher Tier (more ambitious environmental outcomes) is suspended; and access to the most ambitious scheme, the Landscape Recovery Scheme is currently suspended.
“So, old style EU payments have been taken away. They used to make up around 62 per cent of the average income for an English farm and they have been replaced currently with nothing. There is no support for farmers who are not already within those schemes to continue farming.
“This is incredibly important, not only for food production in this country but also and perhaps most especially for nature and the climate.
“Farming was being asked to do most of the heavy lifting when it came to our biodiversity and climate targets – that is now in absolute tatters.
“This government has blown our own legally binding targets around nature and the environment out of the water because farmers are now going to have one choice, really, and that is to intensify production; to farm harder in order to try and scratch a living from the land in a marked environment which is entirely stacked against them.
“Last year one in three farms in this country lost money, and more farms than that lost money on farming. This has been a disastrous day for the UK.”
Nature is a route to profitability
Responding to a request for comment, Martin Lines, CEO of the Nature Friendly Farming Network, said, “The government’s sudden halt of SFI24 has delivered a significant setback in meeting legally binding targets for cleaner air, water, and other environmental measures.
“With so much focus on SFI to deliver public goods compared to other parts of the Environment Land Management scheme (ELMs), it has become increasingly difficult for farmers to understand what they should do and where they fit in. Many farmers have been waiting months for the RPA to update applications and enable the annual declaration so that a new application can be stacked on top.
“Even worse, it is now clear that the new SFI offer will not be available until spring 2026. This leaves most farmers facing an 18-month gap before fresh SFI payments arrive, which is going to leave some of them in a really difficult financial position.”
However, Lines also indicated that there are other routes to farm profitability.
He said, “There is a good deal of evidence that working with nature and finding the ‘sweet spot’ for your land gives you the most profitability in farming. Bringing in external costs to boost productivity often leads to less profitability and also leaves you exposed to the market and climate.”
Farming, nature and climate in jeopardy
Meanwhile, Alice Groom, the RSPB’s head of sustainable land use policy, said, “We need farmers to be at the forefront of efforts to tackle the nature and climate crisis. Pausing new applications to the Sustainable Farming Incentive in England sows doubt and uncertainty that puts farming, nature and climate all in jeopardy.
“Missteps by the previous UK Government in the design of this scheme may have led us here, but recent handling has left farmers in limbo and done nothing to inspire confidence in this government’s ability to manage a just transition to nature-friendly farming.
“Fundamental reform of SFI is needed to ensure environmental delivery and value for money, as is the need to rebuild trust. The government must use this pause to reassess and realign SFI for long-term success, and use June’s spending review to put farming, food security and nature restoration on a stable footing for the future.”
Risking viability of the organic sector
The Soil Association echoed Groom’s comments but emphasised the impact on organic and smaller-scale producers.
A spokesperson said, “For decades support has been available for farmers going through the two-year conversion period to organic because of the many benefits that organic production offers to the environment – including during conversion when they must farm to full organic standards but cannot market their products as organic.
“[The pausing of SFI applications] comes only weeks after the government announcing that farmers wanting to go organic should use options within the new Sustainable Farming Incentives.
Soil Association Chief Executive, Helen Browning, said, “This damaging move by government seriously risks the viability of the organic sector and threatens the supply of sustainable British food. It has frozen farmers out of the opportunity to meet the rising demand for organic food, which will instead continue to be met by imports. The government is disregarding what shoppers and farmers want, alongside the need to protect nature. This is a new low for sustainable food production in England, which will fall even further behind Scotland and other countries where there are targets to increase organic production.
“We are also very worried that smaller producers and family farms, particularly fruit and veg growers, have not had enough opportunity to access the scheme and that they will be most impacted by this sudden change.”