Analysis: Clearer picture on Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) 2024 uptake as new figures released

Analysis: Clearer picture on Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) 2024 uptake as new figures released

The second of Defra's quarterly Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) uptake summaries for 2024 has been published. AIC Policy Manager Andrew Pearson crunches the numbers.

This latest set of data provides what will likely be the most complete picture of the uptake of actions that we will get for the SFI 2023 scheme.

The data shows that there are now 23,200 live agreements on farms in England - an increase of approximately 40% on the 13,900 that were live in April 2024.

It would appear that this increase is a result of a number of smaller farmed areas being entered into the scheme (i.e. those below the 50ha threshold), or that existing agreement holders have chosen to undertake additional actions to those that they had settled upon in their initial agreements.

The management payment has only been taken by 21,400, whereas this figure was 13,100 back in April.

With there currently appearing to be no way to add the SFI 2024 actions to existing agreements, it may be that we see a proliferation in the number of agreements and there may become a point where this figure is no longer an accurate reflection of the number of individual farms participating in the scheme.

Outside of the management payment, uptake of the planning actions for IPM and nutrient management is still relatively low with only 14,500 and 15,300 agreements respectively featuring these actions as of July.

This may have a knock-on effect on the ability for targets under the Environmental Improvement Plan to be met down the line.

In terms of the area of land that SFI actions are being undertaken on, this has typically seen a 35-40% increase between April and July which is relatively consistent across all area-based actions.

Of the nine actions that we compared back in May 2024 when the first data set was released, we can again look at the current impact of the scheme on productivity.

The 149,000ha covered by these actions in April 2024 has increased in line with other increases in scheme uptake at 39% to 246,000 ha - now nearly 3% of the total farmed area of England.

The greatest increase in uptake is seen by IPM2 and AHL4 - both just above 42%. NUM3 continues to occupy the greatest area of the nine actions at 85,500ha - meaning very careful planning of rotations is needed for those farmers also intending to grow pulses commercially.

This time around Defra has not issued a commentary alongside the dataset, so we are unable to get a feel for the quality of land where the additional hectarage of actions are located.

Full details of the SFI 2024 Expanded Offer were issued by the Government last week. Expressions of Interest are in the region of 6,000, nearly 5,000 of these have been invited to apply and over 100 agreements are now live.

The controlled rollout continues to be in place, with Expressions of Interest still needing to be lodged with the Rural Payments Agency.