Countryside Stewardship Higher Tier application window opens for 2024 agreements
The applications window for Countryside Stewardship Higher Tier agreements starting from 1 January 2024 is now open, with payment rates up by an average of 10% for ongoing work.
Farmers and land managers can submit new applications for the Countryside Stewardship Higher Tier, rewarding them for their actions to protect and improve the environment.
The Department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs (Defra) also announced that an annual declaration will replace the current claim process with an aim of easing the administrative burden for farmers and landowners.
The Countryside Stewardship Higher Tier offers multi-year agreements and one-off grants for over 250 different actions farmers can take to enhance the environment alongside their farming business, from planting and maintaining new hedgerows or woodland through to restoring peatland and moorlands.
The start of the application window comes after Farming Minister Mark Spencer announced an average increase of 10% for Countryside Stewardship revenue payment rates last month.
Significant payments will be offered to farmers for taking qualified advice on Integrated Pest Management (IPM) and nutrient management from this year, the Department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs (Defra) has revealed under its revised Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) scheme.
The new standards will see farmers paid £989/year to take BASIS-qualified advice on IPM, which is the top payment of the newly-released standards available under the 2023 scheme.
Getting a nutrient management assessment and report from a FACTS-qualified advisor will qualify farmers for £589/year under the agreement. See the below summary of key points for further details.
There are more than 32,000 ongoing Countryside Stewardship agreements in place, including almost 4,000 Higher Tier agreements.
Authors
Oli Hill
As Head of Communications, Oli creates and oversees the content published on AIC's website, emails, Member briefings, print publications, and social media. A qualified multimedia journalist, he previously spent six years working at Farmers Weekly magazine as a Senior Reporter on the arable team, and latterly as Community Editor. More recently he was Communications Manager at Red Tractor.
