More SFI Announcements (31st May)
It may be that the latest SFI announcements in the last week or so has passed you by in this season of long daylight hours, outside jobs and half term holidays but it is worth taking the time to give your business the health check it needs.
Take time to consider what the farm business is already signed up to, what the options mean for the business and ensure that both the direction of travel within the enterprises and the obligations placed on them from DEFRA agreements are complimentary. One of the best changes in rules over the last year or so has been the RPA’s stance of withdrawing from schemes and amending options within agreements. I have been involved with many businesses who because of a change in circumstance have wanted to amend or leave agreements signed up to in the last 3 years. The new SFI agreements allow this to happen annually but many businesses with old style Environmental Stewardship or Countryside Stewardship agreements did not have this adaptability. Give your business the grant health check it deserves, ask the difficult questions, and understand what is out there currently to allow your business to gain the maximum income possible from the grants available.
The latest round is available to those that have never claimed the BPS before, so new entrants to farming can benefit. It will comprise of 102 actions many of which have been recoded but follow very similar prescriptions as to those which were contained within old CS & ES agreements. The 20 or so new actions involve things like payments for Precision Farming and No Till crop establishment techniques. Many options have been reduced to 3-year requirements to bring them into line with the SFI actions. This will also benefit the tenanted sector on shorter term agreements.
Countryside stewardship as it has been known over the last few years will phase out and merge into SFI type actions agreements with rolling start dates and quarterly payments. New agreements will be in this form and all options that were available in previous years will be available under the new SFI scheme going forward. The introduction of “Endorsed Actions” will replace the old CS type options that required Natural England to sign off. Organic payments for both conversion and ongoing maintenance will be serviced through the new SFI action agreements; this will give flexibility as to the timings on organic conversion of land to fit in with rotations and timing of full organic status.
The programme will be rolled out across the summer with all actions available for businesses from then onwards, we see a complex picture of multiple agreements and SFI actions across individual businesses. I would encourage all to consider what impact these announcements could potentially have on your business and ensure that all is being done to maximise grant payments that fit in with and compliment the ongoing business activities.
To review existing schemes or to look at tailoring an SFI application to your farming practices, contact David at davidgreen@fcgagric.com.
