Blog: SFI Uptake in England - What the data shows and how it has shaped SFI26
From analysing Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) uptake data to understanding how farmer behaviour has shaped policy, Agricultural Industries Confederation's (AIC) Policy Manager Andrew Pearson Roberta Reeve explains what has shaped SFI26, and what it means for the sector.
Following the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) releasing near-final Sustainable Farming Incentive 2026 (SFI26) scheme details, with Window 1 opening on 30 June 2026. This blog looks back at how SFI uptake has developed since 2022, and what that tells us about how the scheme has been redesigned.
From a scheme that began with a relatively small pilot in 2021, and the ill-fated tiered action approach seen in 2022, it scaled rapidly into a broad and shallow offering that, at the time of its closure in March 2025, saw 37,900 individual farms under agreement.
Uptake, however, revealed clear behavioural trends amongst farmers and, for Members, these trends mattered, as they directly shaped demand for advice services, crop choices, fertiliser and plant protection products, and conservation seed mixes. Similarly, many of these trends have directly shaped policy and scheme redesign ahead of the Government settling on the content of SFI26.
From pilot to scale: agreement numbers and land area
The overall trajectory of the SFI is clear and well evidenced in Defra statistics. A relatively modest initial rollout transitioned rapidly into large-scale national uptake, both in terms of agreements and land area.
The SFI Pilot opened in 2021 and involved around 938 farmers, providing a controlled test phase for scheme design. This was followed by SFI22, launched in 2022 as the first national offer, which saw uptake of around 3,200 agreements before being closed on 21 June 2023 as part of a policy reset to enable the transition to the broader, more flexible SFI23 offer from October 2023.
By the time of Defra’s first quarterly data release in April 2024, there were around 13,900 live SFI23 agreements, covering just over 2 million hectares. Defra also reported via its blog that more than 20,000 applications had already been submitted at this stage, signalling strong underlying demand for the scheme.
Growth accelerated sharply through late 2024. Agreements increased to 26,200 by October 2024 and then to 32,200 by 1 January 2025 - a 23% rise in just three months. This rapid expansion reflected both the rollout of the SFI Expanded Offer (SFI24) and increasing farmer confidence in the scheme as a viable income stream.
Farm businesses being able to have more than one live agreement blurred the number of individual farm businesses with an agreement for a time, with uptake of the management payment being the only publicly available indicator of individual business participation.
Expansion continued through early 2025 until the scheme closed in March. By the time Defra’s final data release was issued in October 2025, there were 44,500 active agreements. At the same time, participation translated into substantial funding commitments. Around 35,500 businesses were in SFI agreements, with total committed annual payments reaching approximately £848 million.
What farmers chose: action uptake in practice
While overall participation in the SFI expanded rapidly, Defra statistics show that uptake across individual actions was highly concentrated, with a relatively small number of actions accounting for the majority of participation and land area.
Planning actions dominated scheme participation. Soil assessment and management planning (SAM1/CSAM1) alone covered approximately 3.27 million hectares (38% of England’s utilised agricultural area (UAA)) in January 2025 and was often adopted alongside nutrient management and Integrated Pest Management (IPM) planning requirements.
Beyond planning, uptake focused on a small number of actions that did not significantly reduce productive capacity. The most widely adopted non-planning action was reduced or no insecticide use (IPM4), which covered around 715,000 hectares. Other popular actions, such as herbal leys (SAM3/CSAM3) and multi-species cover crops (SAM2/CSAM2), also featured prominently across agreements and areas, reflecting their compatibility with existing farming systems and their agronomic benefits.
In contrast, most actions saw limited participation. Defra data shows that around 90% of total SFI expenditure was concentrated in fewer than 40 actions, despite the scheme offering, at that time, over 100 actions.
Crucially, relatively little land was removed from production. Around 340,000 hectares (3.9% of UAA) had been entered into non-productive actions by October 2025. Of course, there are nuances—the potential introduction of green bridges from uptake of NUM3/CNUM3, impacting commercial pulse crops, being one example.
Overall, the figures show that farmers were engaging selectively, focusing on actions that could be delivered at scale and integrated into existing systems.
Shaping SFI26: Defra’s response
These clear patterns in action uptake, alongside the need to double the number of farms delivering for wildlife as a result of the recently revised Environmental Improvement Plan (EIP) targets, have driven a clear response in the design of SFI26 from Defra.
One key change is the removal of standalone planning-based payments, including those for soil assessments, nutrient management planning and integrated pest management planning. Their removal signals a policy judgement that assessment-only actions, whilst foundational, do not in themselves deliver measurable environmental outcomes.
The concentration of action uptake and funding accessed provides a clear rationale for reducing the number of actions in SFI26. Removing underutilised or low-impact actions simplifies the scheme, improves clarity for applicants, and allows Defra to focus funding on actions that are scalable and widely deliverable.
Budget control has been a further driver, as well as an attempt to address the uneven distribution of payments, whereby approximately 4% of businesses receive around 25% of total funding. This underpins the introduction of tighter controls, including:
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Payment recalibration (reductions in payments for herbal leys (CSAM3), winter bird food (CAHL2) and legume fallow (CNUM3));
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Agreement caps (a £100,000 per farm annual cap on agreements); and
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Limits on actions (enhanced overwinter stubble (AHW7) joins the list of actions capped at 25% of farm area).
Collectively, these measures aim to distribute support more evenly across the farming population, while ensuring overall expenditure remains within a fixed budget.
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