Sustainable farming incentive - handbook for 2023 has been published

Janet Hughes Defra

Janet Hughes Defra

Member
✓
Afternoon all,

Today we've published a handbook containing all the detailed information about the sustainable farming incentive offer for this year.

The handbook is here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/sfi-handbook-for-the-sfi-2023-offer

An overview blogpost is here: https://defrafarming.blog.gov.uk/2023/06/21/sfi-more-ways-to-enhance-your-income-productivity-and-the-environment/

The handbook sets out all the detailed actions, rules and requirements of the scheme, in a single handbook that you can download and print (because this is what many of you have asked us to do, rather than spreading the information across multiple pages on GOV.UK).

We have made some changes to the scheme in response to feedback from you and other farmers and through our pilot and early rollout of the scheme. In particular, we have made a much broader range of options available, made the scheme more flexible so you can pick the individual actions you want to do rather than having to do them in set combinations or percentages of land entered into the scheme.

Finally, I know I have not been present on the forum in the consistent, ongoing way many of you would like. I understand why that has been frustrating and annoying, and I am really sorry about that. I have found that am just not able to personally engage on every thread on an ongoing basis, I'm afraid. However I do really want to find a way of addressing your questions and hearing your feedback all the time, not just when we publish new information, so I am working with @Clive to put in place a better, ongoing, sustainable way of managing this so that you can ask questions of me and my team and give us feedback when they arise. We will let you know where we get to with that as soon as possible.

For this particular thread, I am planning to be online at least daily, for the next week, to answer your questions about the information we've published today. I have posted this as a question with voting, and if you could upvote questions that you particularly want me to address it would be helpful if you could vote for them so that I can prioritise my time and attention, and I will then do my best to work through as many of them as I possibly can. I hope this is helpful and look forward to your questions.

If you have questions about your specific farm situation, the best thing to do is contact the RPA contact centre and they will be able to point you in the right direction.

Thank you.
 
Solution
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Honestly this is where you get farmers feedback and where you should have laid out questions before any bps was removed , it seems the cart was sent out before the horse was even born you now have the whole budget and are asking us if we want to participate with tearms that are ludicrous to any business owner for little in return but a few quid and a "your doing your bit for the environment"? the forms are so complex that it might as well be written in binary code.
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topground

topground

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
North Somerset.
J 1177 said:
Pretty much but i dont think the pennys dropped with defra. They still think their schemes wonderfull
Click to expand...
The culture of the civil service is such that they thrive on bureaucracy and making simple things complicated. The process is more important than the product.
Food producers, referred to by DEFRA as farmers, on the other hand work on how to deliver the product with the minimum of process because process is expensive and food producers have to make a profit to survive.
There is a huge gulf between the two and consequent disengagement by the people that DEFRA need to sign up to the scheme to keep civil servants in work.
In the case of SFI the civil service have no idea what the product is. There are no measurable outcomes other than food producers going out of business and a greater reliance on imports in a dangerous world.
As regards the Hedgerow standard it is not clear that DEFRA have decided what a tree is but you have to tag trees so you know how many trees you have per 100 metres.
Probably the subject of another thread but this extract from a reply from the RPA to a request for a copy of the RPA Enforcement Policy means what exactly?

“You have also asked if we can post a copy of the RPA's Enforcement policy. Enforcement is not applied by the RPA to SFI. Instead, regulation is applied to SFI.”
They then refer me to the Agriculture Act 2020.
I have asked if not the RPA enforcing then who?
@Goweresque your thoughts?
 
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Goweresque

Goweresque

Member
Location
North Wilts
topground said:
The culture of the civil service is such that they thrive on bureaucracy and making simple things complicated. The process is more important than the product.
Food producers, referred to by DEFRA as farmers, on the other hand work on how to deliver the product with the minimum of process because process is expensive and food producers have to make a profit to survive.
There is a huge gulf between the two and consequent disengagement by the people that DEFRA need to sign up to the scheme to keep civil servants in work.
In the case of SFI the civil service have no idea what the product is. There are no measurable outcomes other than food producers going out of business and a greater reliance on imports in a dangerous world.
As regards the Hedgerow standard it is not clear that DEFRA have decided what a tree is but you have to tag trees so you know how many trees you have per 100 metres.
Probably the subject of another thread but this extract from a reply from the RPA to a request for a copy of the RPA Enforcement Policy means what exactly?

“You have also asked if we can post a copy of the RPA's Enforcement policy. Enforcement is not applied by the RPA to SFI. Instead, regulation is applied to SFI.”
They then refer me to the Agriculture Act 2020.
I have asked if not the RPA enforcing then who?
@Goweresque your thoughts?
Click to expand...

My thoughts are that we are being played. Or rather subjected to a PR exercise. When you get down to the practical nitty gritty of the SFI standards, and things like enforcement, sorry regulation :rolleyes:, with JH, the engagement stops abruptly. All you suddenly get is Civil Service-speak. One minute you're conversing with a human being, the next you're getting an official 'line' parroted at you, which isn't the answer to the question you asked. Its very obvious to me the difference in tone. One minute its all chatty, then it suddenly becomes very stilted and formal. My feeling is that Defra have been told they have to 'engage' with farmers, and these SFI threads are part of that process. But it doesn't mean anything, its just a tick box exercise. They can say 'We engaged with the stakeholders', but they never had any intention of letting go of any of their control of the whole process.
 
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redsloe

redsloe

Member
Location
Cornwall
Chris123 said:
There will be a lot of grass ploughed up in the next 24 months.
As soon as our countryside stewardship and higher level agreements come to an end we will be ploughing all the ground we are able to
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To plant wheat at £180/t? I have a couple of fields that I was going to do that but I am now going to put them and some others into IGL2. Cut once and leave, possibly cut twice in a wetter year.
25ha comes to 12k.
Establish 15ha SAM3 as part of normal re-seed and that's another 6k.
Is ploughing up 15ha to plant wheat currently going to look that good against an 18k payment?
 
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topground

topground

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
North Somerset.
Goweresque said:
Thats only for newly established trees, to identify them and protect them from being flailed. If you have established trees above the hedge line tagging would not be necessary. Its only when you select a sapling to grow on that it needs to be tagged.
Click to expand...
When does a sapling become a tree though? Not that it matters, the whole scheme is a trap.
 
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D

DrWazzock

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lincolnshire
Seriously who has time to be tagging and recording saplings? It’s as much as I can do just to get the hedger on and get them trimmed. Trees in hedges are quite a nuisance. Having to lift up and down, back up with the hedger etc, then hand trim to get the last bits. Then the tree will rip something off your combine unless you keep sawing branches back. A tree branch folded the grain elevator right back on my cousins combine. About £3k damage. And folk want more of this? Really? What a load of old rubbish.
 
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G

Gedd

Member
Livestock Farmer
DrWazzock said:
Seriously who has time to be tagging and recording saplings? It’s as much as I can do just to get the hedger on and get them trimmed. Trees in hedges are quite a nuisance. Having to lift up and down, back up with the hedger etc, then hand trim to get the last bits. Then the tree will rip something off your combine unless you keep sawing branches back. A tree branch folded the grain elevator right back on my cousins combine. About £3k damage. And folk want more of this? Really? What a load of old rubbish.
Click to expand...
Dont like trees in a hedgeline nothing looks better than a lovely neat trimmed hedge when it nice and level
 
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G

Gedd

Member
Livestock Farmer
DrWazzock said:
Seriously who has time to be tagging and recording saplings? It’s as much as I can do just to get the hedger on and get them trimmed. Trees in hedges are quite a nuisance. Having to lift up and down, back up with the hedger etc, then hand trim to get the last bits. Then the tree will rip something off your combine unless you keep sawing branches back. A tree branch folded the grain elevator right back on my cousins combine. About £3k damage. And folk want more of this? Really? What a load of old rubbish.
Click to expand...
Dont like trees in a hedgeline nothing looks better than a lovely neat trimmed hedge when it nice and level
 
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L

Luke Cropwalker

Member
Arable Farmer
Janet, I am interested in multispecies overwinter cover crops SAM2. When are we able to apply for this option, is it going to be available this winter? Is the area flexible over the 3 year agreement to allow for variations in field sizes? Is there is list of what is allowed under 'herbs' to sow as cover? Is there any flexibility with the other covers allowed, if, for agronomic reasons I don't want to sow brassicas, grass or legumes?
 
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SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

  • 0 %

    Votes: 110 38.6%

  • Up to 25%

    Votes: 107 37.5%

  • 25-50%

    Votes: 41 14.4%

  • 50-75%

    Votes: 6 2.1%

  • 75-100%

    Votes: 4 1.4%

  • 100% I’ve had enough of farming!

    Votes: 17 6.0%
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