- Location
- Essex
Hi Janet, are there going to be restrictions on what and when we can transfer from C's to SFI?This complexity arises from the approach we're taking of gradually rolling out the new schemes, alongside the existing ones, before then turning the existing schemes off and allowing people to transfer across. (The alternative is a big bang approach where we switch everyone across from existing schemes to new ones, one day - we've found that those sorts of approaches to this sort of project don't generally work very well)
CSS will continue to accept new applications until 2023 (for agreements to start in 2024). We'd encourage anyone not already in a scheme to look again at CSS, including the improvements we've made to inspections and penalties to make them fairer and more proportionate.
From 2025, all new agreements will be through Environmental Land Management schemes, and we'll provide a smooth way for those in CSS to transfer across to ELM schemes.
For the pilot, we weren't ready to deal with overlaps between CSS and SFI, so we only took applications on parcels not already covered by CSS.
For the rollout of SFI more widely later this year, we've said you can have both CSS and SFI on the same parcel so long as we're not paying you for the same thing twice, and as long as the actions are compatible / not contradictory.
If you want the full range of options from now, the best option is to go into CSS for now and transfer across to new schemes once they're fully ready. Or, if you're already in CSS, you can start adding in SFI standards alongside your CSS agreement and then eventually transfer across. Or, if you want to start small and build from there and you like the simplicity of SFI when we launch it this year, you can start in SFI in 2022 and build up from there, avoiding the need to transfer from one scheme to another later on. It's up to you to decide which of these routes is best for your farm depending on what combination of things you want to do, and where you're starting from.
And will we be allowed to end a cs agreement early to transfer what's left into SFI (or elms).