Sustainable farming incentive - handbook for 2023 has been published

[Janet Hughes Defra]

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.

 

[Janet Hughes Defra]

Rapidly turning out to be a mistake for people who have applied for CS in the last two years!

The problem with SFI is that there seems to be no capital grants for things like fencing/ concreting etc.

Those in SFI have access to CS capital grants which include these items.

 

[Janet Hughes Defra]

@Janet Hughes Defra
You probably didn’t see it on the old sfi/elms thread but I did say you would be more than welcome to visit our little farm up here in the Pennines.
Meadows still not mowed ( late July) oyster catchers , lapwings and curlews , sheep lots of sheep
Yet we feel like the enemy , oh yes trees and I built a pond
You are more than welcome to see a small hill farm and what we do
David & Sarah

I didn't see that, sorry, no, but thank you for the kind offer, if you DM me I'd be keen to follow that up

 

[Janet Hughes Defra]

@Janet Hughes Defra, can I claim sda low input grassland on the same land in up2 in a HLS agreement, if not why not? UP2 seems more onerous than low input grassland and yet the payment is less.

No, those 2 actions can't be layered on top of each other

Also, you mentioned that HLS can go into a CS agreement, If I was to do that could I add more land into that agreement, including supplements like sp8 for example?

Yes if you transfer into a new CS agreement you can add more land and options

 

[Wood field]

I didn't see that, sorry, no, but thank you for the kind offer, if you DM me I'd be keen to follow that up

Pm sent , thanks

 

[Janet Hughes Defra]

The National Audit Office could see where this was headed two years ago. The admin costings are based on blind faith.

Ensuring cost-effective delivery
19 Defra has set a target to reduce administrative costs compared with existing agri-environment schemes but has not yet developed its approach to achieving these. Defra has set a cap for administrative costs at 10% of scheme payments, compared with up to 18% under current agri-environment schemes. It based this target on a desired level of savings on current scheme costs, rather than a detailed understanding of the cost drivers in existing and future schemes. Defra expects to achieve its target through a combination of simpler scheme rules, faster and more automated processing of applications, and remote and automated compliance and enforcement. Defra is currently testing the achievability of its 10% cap as part of a review of cost baselines and cost drivers, which it had planned to complete in July 2021. While some elements have been finished, the review is not yet complete owing to lack of resources and the complexity of establishing baselines. Defra is aware that reducing administrative costs may have an impact on other parts of the scheme such as potentially higher levels of fraud and error but has not yet developed an approach to determining where the balance should be (paragraphs 3.2 to 3.4).

Those admin costs are not met from the £2.4bn budget, they are funded separately (other than the technical assistance pot which is <2% of the total budget and has always been part of the budget.)

 

[Janet Hughes Defra]

Question for @Janet Hughes Defra

SFI SAM3 Herbal Ley and CS GS4 rotations on same farm

I'm trying to get my head around the differences and how it will work with different schemes in place on the farm at the same time. It's the sort of information I need to know now so I can complete my midtier application in August.

The SAM3 has a better spec and is not as strict as the GS4. Herbal leys established under GS4 need to contain a certain % of herbs/legumes but SAM3 only says a mix. As the GS4 herbal leys age and lose species, can I rotate those parcels to being SAM3 where they still 100% qualify?

How does a midtier to SFI rotation work in practice? Will the computer cope or throw an issue about double payments when I want to switch from GS4 to SAM3 or vice versa? With midtier having a strict 1st January start but SFI starting midyear, how will this work for when I want to rotate between schemes?


Alternatively, will it be possible to move GS4 out from current midtier agreements and into SFI as SAM3?

I would advise contacting RPA to talk about your specific farm and agreement(s), but in general yes you can rotate SFI and CS options around your farm in this way, and you can use leys that you already have to qualify for SFI, so long as they meet the requirements of the action and we're not paying you for them through another scheme at the same time.

 

[Janet Hughes Defra]

Exactly shed come round no doubt be very pleasant, polite and disarming, blow smoke up your arse go away and completely ignore what you said whilst ticking the box for farmer engagement.

That's not what I do at all, but I can understand why you'd be sceptical. How about I come to your farm and we can have a chat about it?

 

[Janet Hughes Defra]

I can't really see why SFI is 3 year agreement. Popular FBT period is 5 years, so it doesn't fit. Lots of land on annual let's.

The average remaining time on an FBT is just over 3 years. If you're on a rolling tenancy agreement that's shorter than that, you can still come into the scheme, and leave without penalty if you lose management control of the land.

Can't SFI quite simply be on annual basis?

The 2/3 year lege fallow could be single year, which would be better for environment imho (less nitrogen fertiliser used).

Late summer cover crop, sprayed off 15th May would also be a good option if it existed. Could be N fixing, OM addition and sustainable grassweed control.

We have put a number of the options available as rotational options, including herbal leys (SAM3), but we need the scheme agreements overall to be longer because in most cases the actions need to be done over a multi-year period to deliver the intended benefits. Many farmers also tell us they want the certainty of longer agreements (and we're looking at whether to give some options around that when you enter into the scheme, in future years - eg have a minimum required duration for an option, but allow you to choose to commit to it for longer if you want to).

 

[Ceri]

Pm sent , thanks

Well boi here’s your chance we were messaging few pages ago……

 

[Janet Hughes Defra]

@Janet Hughes Defra
I don't understand how you can say that existing SFI soils agreement holders will not be penalised, yes your going to pay them out but I've done the maths and in many situations the new SFI standards will pay much less per year than the soils standard for the same themes minus soil cover and add organic matter. Seems a bit smoke and mirrors as they will lose out after 3 yrs. The scheme guidance stated 6 weeks notice of closure. Should you not be providing drafted agreements the chance to submit, as well as submitted. Very unfair for the people who were filling in applications this month. To now discover they will get paid less?

That is not the case, if you're in SFI 2022 you will not lose out financially as a result of moving to SFI 2023 - we've written to all agreement holders to explain how this will work.

50 ha arable intermediate would pay £2000/ yr and require 10ha of cover crop 10ha of cover crop Sam 2 pays £1,290/yr
The herbal ley is slightly less but not far off but any one who was going for the introductory level has been well done over. (£16-22/ha decrease in payment.

Why could you not have kept the into level or broken out the add organic matter and green cover out as well.

Because these actions don't work in the scheme as individual standalone actions, and would result in people not being able to do more ambitious and higher paid actions on the same land, which is what many farmers have told us they want to be able to do.

You say you've created flexibility but also created complication, the principle of a % of total area is quite manageable and very flexible compared to annually declaring what you've done and how much.

I do see the benefits, that's why we started with that design, but many farmers have told us that the %age requirements were too restrictive, and that they wanted to choose the combinations of actions and areas of land that worked for them. That's why we've changed the scheme to reflect that feedback.

No doubt the declaration will be due at a time that is no where near the relevant period for deciding and establishing the options each year. Appreciate you can now increase area but CS rotational options had the flexibility to reduce the option to 0 if so required now you can only go down to 50%.

The declaration will be due on the anniversary of your agreement, and you can choose when to apply and enter the scheme to make that happen at a time that works for you.

Also why can you not claim Lig 1 and Num 2? if you want people to be reducing fertiliser why not allow them to establish legumes in that area to support this?

I'm double-checking this one with my colleagues and will come back to you.

 

[Wood field]

Well boi here’s your chance we were messaging few pages ago……

Yours to if you ask the lady

 

[Janet Hughes Defra]

What happened to the adding organic matter?

We won't be offering that as a standalone action, because it doesn't work in the scheme as an individual action when not combined with other actions (but if you are in an existing agreement, you will not lose out financially as a result of this change and we have written to all agreement holders to explain this)

 

[Janet Hughes Defra]

I’ve not seen anything from Janet Hughes Defra today.
Is she posting somewhere else on the forum?

I was in meetings all day, have been catching up this evening

 

[Janet Hughes Defra]

SFI is three years as Defra research showed 3 years as most common length of FBT!!! That was what I was told.

That is correct, the average remaining term on an FBT is just over 3 years

 

[Chris W]

We're well aware that process is slow and burdensome and we're working on making it much more straightforward - meanwhile we've provided as much flexibility as we can on whole and part parcel options, but very happy to take feedback on that (and all other issues) into account as we continue to develop the scheme

Janet you say you have added provided as much flexibility as possible yet you have restricted this option to whole land parcel only rather than just making it a part parcel option.

I was just curious why Defra felt this option required this particular layer of inflexibility?

 

[Janet Hughes Defra]

I’ve seen that on page 22 thank you.

I must admit I did not think a 5ha parcel would be considered ‘small’ enough to be combined with other parcels into a single sampling area.

Where do you draw the line?

Can you confirm that a RPA inspector (sorry field officer) will consider 5ha parcels small?

We're trying to make it flexible so you can make a judgement about what is reasonable, and under the new approach to controls if RPA don't agree with what you've done the first step will be a conversation about it (see page 124: If you find you cannot do what’s required under your SFI agreement, we’ll try to be pragmatic and start by helping you to fix what’s gone wrong)

 

[Janet Hughes Defra]

50% of BPS is GONE... nothing is filling the gapping hole in 2023?????

CS is open for applications now, SFI will start accepting applications in August, and there are a range of grants on offer over the course of this year.

 

[Janet Hughes Defra]

Its ring fenced, the fact is that I believe monies have been robbed from Peter (BPS) to pay Paul (CSS increases)

Happy to be corrected @Janet Hughes Defra

That is correct, the government's commitment is to maintain the budget at the same overall level over the Parliament ie £2.4bn per year in England - as less is spent on BPS each year, more is available to spend through schemes and grants (which is why the schemes are being expanded incrementally, as the budget for them increases)

 

[stroller]

What a cynical suggestion.....

No such thing as cynicism it's just bitter experience, especially when it comes to defra and the government.

 

[JoeBloggs30]

I would recommend calling the RPA if you want to check in advance whether your plan meets the requirements of the actions

Ring 5 times and you get 5 differing answers and not one will be brave enough to put it in an email to you. and when they do they normally just say see scheme guidance, which you’ve already read 3 times.