Sustainable Farming Incentive action uptake data October 2024
Published 20 November 2024
Applies to England
© Crown copyright 2024
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Main messages
- At 1st October 2024, there were 26,200 active Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) agreements in England. This is a 13% 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 more details 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% 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 3.0% of UAA, compared to 1.7% in April 2024.
Background
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.
SFI23 was closed to new agreements in June 2024. The SFI Expanded Offer opened on 31st May 2024 using a “phased rollout”, where applicants need to register their interest with RPA and are then invited to apply.
SFI Uptake
On 1st October 2024, there were 26,200 SFI active agreements in England. This was made up of 25,300 agreements in SFI23 and 900 agreements in the SFI Expanded Offer.
Number of agreements by region
This notice shows uptake of SFI per ITL1 area. The accompanying dataset gives uptake per ITL2 area. More information about ITLs (International Territorial Levels) can be found here.
Numbers have been rounded so may not sum to totals. Agreements where region is unknown have been excluded.
Figure 1: A heatmap of English regions showing SFI uptake
Text description of Figure 1: A heatmap of English regions showing SFI uptake.
Source: Eurostat Geographic Information System
Table 1: Number of SFI agreements per English region
| Region (England) | Number of agreements |
|---|---|
| North East | 1,600 |
| North West | 2,700 |
| Yorkshire and the Humber | 3,300 |
| East Midlands | 3,200 |
| West Midlands | 2,800 |
| East of England | 3,200 |
| London | 90 |
| South East | 2,400 |
| South West | 6,300 |
The highest number of SFI agreements is seen in Devon, followed by East Anglia and North Yorkshire. The lowest numbers are in areas with large urban centres, such as London, West Midlands (Birmingham) and Merseyside. The number of agreements per region will be affected by the number of eligible businesses per region, as well as the predominant type of farming activity.
Figure 2: Chart showing agreement uptake per quarter in 2024
Text description of Figure 2: A bar chart showing total SFI agreement uptake per quarter in 2024. The number of agreements has increased from 13,900 SFI23 agreements in April 2024, to 23,200 SFI23 agreements in July 2024, to 25,300 SFI23 agreements and 900 Expanded Offer agreements in October 2024.
The number of agreements has increased since the first time we published SFI uptake data, in April 2024. The increase from July to October was slower, but this could be partially explained by the fact that SFI23 was closed to new agreements in June 2024. The SFI Expanded Offer opened in June 2024 using a “phased rollout”, where applicants need to register their interest with RPA and are then invited to apply. This means that take up of the scheme has been less rapid.
Excluding the management payment, the most popular action in terms of both agreements and land area is SAM1 (Assess soil, test soil organic matter and produce a soil management plan) in SFI23. Similarly, CSAM1 (also Assess soil, test soil organic matter and produce a soil management plan) in the SFI Expanded Offer is the most popular action. If we exclude planning and assessment options, the actions that cover the most area in both schemes are “No use of insecticide on arable crops and permanent crops” (IPM4 and CIPM4). These options can cover large areas of land and may have potential benefits to farm productivity or efficiency. Actions have all increased at a rate roughly mirroring the overall increase in agreements- no actions have seen sudden increases or decreases.
There are a number of actions that currently have low or no uptake in the SFI Expanded Offer. Many of these actions have limited eligibility, including actions that can only be carried out on organic land or historic features, or near waterbodies.
Actions that take land out of production
Table 2: Area covered by actions that may take land out of production
| Month | Area (hectares) | Percentage of UAA |
|---|---|---|
| April 2024 | 149,000 | 1.7 |
| July 2024 | 246,000 | 2.8 |
| October 2024 | 266,100 | 3.0 |
In October 2024, there were 266,100 hectares of land in options that temporarily take land out of production. This is 3.0% of UAA, compared to 1.7% in April 2024. Some of these options can be done on fallow land, which would not be producing food in that year, so the amount of land taken out of production is likely to be slightly lower than 3.0%.
Options that take land out of production are:
- AHL1 and CAHL: Pollen and nectar flower mix
- AHL2 and CAHL2: Winter bird food on arable and horticultural land
- AHL3 and CAHL3: Grassy field corners or blocks
- AHL4 and CAHL4: 4m to 12m grass buffer strip on arable and horticultural land
- IGL1 and CIGL1: Take grassland field corners or blocks out of management
- IGL2 and CIGL2: Winter bird food on improved grassland
- IGL3: 4m to 12m grass buffer strip on improved grassland=
- IPM2 and CIPM2: Flower-rich grass margins, blocks, or in-field strips
- NUM3: Legume fallow
- WBD3: In-field grass strips
- AHW1: Bumblebird mix
- AHW9: Unharvested cereal headland
- AHW11: Cultivated areas for arable plants.
Other actions that are under review are:
- AHW3: Beetle banks
- AHW5: Nesting plots for lapwing
- AHW12: Manage woodland edges on arable land
- SCR1: Create scrub and open habitat mosaics
About these statistics
Data
These statistics are created using Rural Payments Agency data.
Revisions policy
This release has no scheduled revisions. Unscheduled revisions will follow the Defra policy on revisions and corrections.
Future publications
The next release of these statistics will be in February 2025. All previously published data is available at here.
Definitions
The Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI)
The Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) scheme offers payments to land managers for carrying out activities that benefit the environment on their land. The SFI Pilot launched in 2021, followed by a limited rollout of the full scheme in 2022 (SFI22). All agreements from SFI22 closed on 31st March 2023 and many agreement holders started to new agreements in SFI23. SFI23 was opened in October 2023 and was open to applications until June 2024, when it was superseded by the SFI Expanded Offer. The information presented here relates to SFI23 and the SFI Expanded Offer.
Information about the SFI Expanded Offer can be found here
Actions
Actions are activities that land managers can carry out on their land, such as “Multi-species winter cover crops”, or “Manage hedgerows”. SFI23 had 24 actions that could be selected. Details of SFI23 actions can be found here
The Expanded Offer has 102 actions, which includes all the SFI23 actions and some actions previously in the Countryside Stewardship Mid Tier scheme. Some Expanded Offer actions are the same as in SFI23, but are prefixed with a “C” in the Expanded Offer. For example, SAM1 and CSAM1 are both “Assess soil, produce a soil management plan and test soil organic matter”, and have the same requirements. Where actions have been referred to in the body of the text, quotation marks have been used for the action description for clarity.
Action Groups
Actions are grouped to show actions that have a similar theme. These groups were developed by Defra.
Funding Type
Funding type shows whether the action is a revenue action or a capital item. Revenue items mean the agreement holder is paid for ongoing work, such as setting aside land for wildlife for several years. Capital items mean the agreement holder receives a single payment, such as claiming the cost of sheep netting.
Official status
Official statistics are statistics produced by Crown bodies and other organisations included on one of the Official Statistics Orders, on behalf of the UK government and devolved administrations. These are official statistics, guided by the UK Statistics Authority’s Code of Practice for Statistics.
Contact details
Katie Killick Email: [email protected]