.jpg)
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs released a detailed update of take-up of the new Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI23). DEFRA say that over 20,000 farms have now applied (not too bad out of the 100,000 or so farms in England who would be eligible).
However, the data only covers 13,900 farms who had agreements in place by 1st April. I’ve cross referenced these with the new payment rates DEFRA published in January. Here are the results:
💸Altogether these agreements will give out a remarkable £299,390,400 in their first year.💸
🎉 2 Most Popular Actions: 🎉
Overall, the management and planning payments are easily the most utilised:
🤝 MPA1: SFI Management Payment
Agreements:13,100
Value: £21,440,000
Unsuprisingly the entry level payment of up to £2,000/farm is the most popular. Not quite sure why 800 farms chose not to enter it 🤔
🌱 SAM1: Assess Soil, Produce a Soil Management Plan and Test Soil Organic MatterAgreements: 10,200 covering 1,600,000ha Value: £10,589,400Nearly ¾ of farms chose this option. Soil Benchmark are here to help them create the Soil Management Plans they have to produce in the next 12 months (having already helped 1000+ farms covering 285,000 ha).
💰 3 Most Lucrative Actions 💰 While these actions are not among the most popular, their high payment rates make them by far the most financially rewarding (these three actions make up 43% of all SFI23 money given out!)🐑 SAM3: Establish and Maintain Herbal LeysAgreements: 5,200 covering 175,000haValue: £66,850,000More than a third of all farms are doing this, and it alone is 22% of all SAM1 payments 😮
🐦 AHL2: Winter Bird Food on Arable and Horticultural LandAgreements: 2,300 covering 38,200haValue: £32,584,600The hefty £853/ha payment tempted a lot of farmers, one of the reasons DEFRA then capped the total amount of a farm that could be put into this and 5 other actions which take land out of food production 😋
🥜 NUM3: Legume FallowAgreements: 1,600 covering 50,700haValue: £30,065,100Again the high payment rate of £593/ha has been a popular option.
🔎 Suprising omission - why have AHL1 (600 agreements) and IPM2 (900 agreements) proved less popular despite paying out £700+/ha? They were in fact the 3rd and 5th LEAST popular actions respectively.Any comments welcome.
You can find the full data here.
