The new approach to farm payments will reward farmers and landowners for managing land and soils in a more sustainable way. In so doing the hope is this will drive up agricultural standards and best practice helping to restore and improve the natural environment on which we all depend. In short public money for public good.

In June 2022 Defra introduced the 'Sustainable Farming Scheme' (SFI) for England.  The scheme was originally designed around a number of soils and land-based standards, but this was approach was revised in autumn 2023 to become a flexible action based scheme. A controlled rollout of the SFI 2024 scheme was announced by Defra at the end of May (2024).  Farmers in England will now be able to pick and mix from 102 new actions which have a range of payment rates and include precision farming and agroforestry among the option choices.  

Some of the 50 options that were originally part of the Countryside Stewardship (CSS) Mid-Tier Scheme have now been combine into the SFI 2024 offer, to simplify the application and payment process.  Also the agreement terms of many of the original and the bulk of the 102 new actions have been reduced from 5 to 3 years so more tennanted farmers can get involved.

Since autumn 2023, Nutrient Management Planning (NMP) has become a real focus of the SFI and Defra has increased the payment rate from £589 to £652 per year for a nutrient management assessment by a FACTS qualified adviser. The aim of the action is to ensure that farmers assess their current approach to nutrient usage and effectively plan how to manage nutrients efficiently, and optimise the use of applied organic resources.

To meet the obligations of the SFI NMP farmers are required to have a nutrient management plan so that fertilisers and manures are used more sustainably. With NavigatePro this basic requirement is an action all farmers can easily take to secure public money and help meet their obligation.

It is likely that a similar principle of public money for public good will be adopted by the devolved administration in Wales and the developing scheme is called the Sustainable Farming Scheme. Scotland is taking a different approach. The Scottish Rural Development Programme (SRDP) will continue the extension of the Pillar 2 funds across the transition period into a new programme which will be domestically funded.

NavigatePro simplifies nutrient management planning allowing advisers to provide farmers with simple action plans that support sustainable nutrient choices.