Defra Releases Latest Quarterly Figures on Sustainable Farming Incentive Uptake
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) has published figures for the uptake of their Countryside Stewardship, Environmental Stewardship, and Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) schemes up to 1 April 2025 on gov.uk. These figures apply to England only.
In total, there are 77,000 live agri-environment agreements: 39,300 in SFI (25,300 in SFI23 and 14,000 in the SFI Expanded Offer); 32,000 in Countryside Stewardship; and 5,500 in Environmental Stewardship.
In terms of action uptake across both SFI schemes combined, it is no surprise to see the likes of SAM3 (Herbal leys), SAM2 (Winter cover crops), and IPM4 (No insecticide use) still leading the way in terms of area due to their early popularity under SFI23. These actions are also popular under the Expanded Offer, along with the majority of the other area-based SFI23 actions, with most being applied on at least 15,000 hectares. However, in all instances for the SFI23 actions, their uptake under the Expanded Offer makes up less than 30% of the total area entered under both SFI schemes combined.
Similarly, actions around hedgerows entered into under the Expanded Offer are only 25% of the total length across both iterations of SFI. The other boundary options newly available under the SFI Expanded Offer have proven equally popular, with earth banks, stone-faced hedgebanks, dry stone walls, and ditches being maintained along over 20,000 kilometres with a value of more than £315 million.
Management plans remain popular under the scheme, SAM1 (Soil management plans) in particular, appearing in 25,500 agreements (78% of businesses with SFI agreements) and extending over 3.6 million hectares. NUM1 (Nutrient management plans) and IPM1 (IPM plans) have also been well supported in agreements with 22,400 and 21,200 respectively, with roughly a 60:40 split of uptake between SFI and the Expanded Offer. It would also appear that the Management Payment has been claimed by 99.4% of businesses that have agreements.
Only three of the actions that were introduced under the Expanded Offer have been adopted on 30,000 hectares or more. These are PRF1 (Variable rate application of nutrients) on 363,000 hectares; SOH1 (No-till farming) on 90,700 hectares; and SOH3 (Summer cover crops) on 48,600 hectares. Of the remaining actions, 72 are to be undertaken on less than 10,000 hectares, whilst 35 of these will be on less than 1,000 hectares.
The number of agreements by region, using ITL2 areas, does not vary significantly between SFI23 and the Expanded Offer, with the highest number of agreements being seen in Devon, East Anglia, and North Yorkshire. However, still omitted from the dataset is ITL2 region against individual action uptake that would have allowed spatial interpretation of which actions are most popular in which areas of the country.
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