Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) 2024 to Reopen for Farmers Midway Through Their Applications

On 12 May 2025, Daniel Zeichner, Minister for Food Security and Rural Affairs at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), announced a limited reopening of the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) 2024 scheme for farmers who were midway through an application when the scheme was closed without notice on 11 March 2025.

The Government will now allow further applications to be made under SFI 24 by those who had started and saved their application within two months of 11 March 2025, but who had not submitted the application by that date.

Approximately 3,000 eligible applicants will be given a six-week window in which to make an application.

There are however restrictions including:

only one application may be submitted per farm business
agreements will be offered up to a max value of £9,300 per year for the duration of the agreement (excluding the SFI management payment). This is the median average agreement value for existing SFI 24 agreements
agreement holders will not be able to add more land to ‘rotational’ SFI actions after Year 1 of their agreement.

Further details are expected from the Defra and the Rural Payments Agency (RPA) in due course, including the timings of when applications from eligible applicants can start.