THE government has announced expanded and improved Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) offers for farmers - with 102 actions.

Full details of the expanded offer have been released today (May 21), and it will be open to new entrants and include more than 20 new options to support sustainable food production. 

There will be payments available for precision farming, agroforestry, a new and expanded offer for upland farmers and more actions for tenants on short-term contracts. There will also be new actions to support flood preparedness. 

The SFI is for all farmers - including tenant and upland farmers. As well as the expanded offer, more than 50 simplified actions from the Countryside Stewardship Mid Tier will be merged into SFI. 

Farming Minister Mark Spencer said: "I recognise that farmers have had to deal with difficult circumstances this year, which is why we have delivered on our commitment to provide further detail on the expanded SFI offer ahead of applications opening in July.      

"The new expanded SFI offer gives farmers more choice, makes things easier and pays out more, so they can get on with the important job of producing high quality food in a sustainable way."

In March, Defra placed limits so that SFI applicants could only put 25% of land into six actions. This will be added to four actions in the expanded offer: 

 

  • WBD3 - in-field grass strips
  • AHW9 - unharvested cereal headland
  • AHW1 - bumblebird mix
  • AHW11 - cultivated areas for arable plants

New SFI applicants will only be able to put up to 25% of the total agricultural area of their farm into a combination of one or more of these 10 actions.