Help Farmers Help Nature

The Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) is the UK Government's entry-level scheme for paying farmers in England to protect and restore nature alongside food production.

Farmers can receive payments for actions such as improving soil health, creating habitat for wildlife, restoring hedgerows and managing land in ways that benefit nature and protect food security. SFI is part of the Environmental Land Management (ELM) schemes, which were introduced to reward farmers for delivering public goods such as clean water, healthy soils, thriving wildlife and climate resilience.

Many farmers want to do more for nature, but the current system isn't working as well as it should.

Earlier this year, applications for the latest SFI offer opened and then closed rapidly, leaving many farmers unable to apply. This created uncertainty for farming businesses and highlighted concerns about the scheme’s design, which doesn’t deliver the mix of resources needed to recover nature and make land more resilient to climate change. 

While SFI has helped many farmers protect nature, too much funding is currently spent on options that deliver limited benefits for wildlife. Meanwhile, more ambitious schemes that could create larger-scale benefits remain difficult for many farmers to access.

At a time when wildlife is declining and farmers are facing growing pressures from climate change, we need farming schemes that deliver more for both nature and farming businesses.

The UK Government must make sure public money delivers the biggest possible benefits for nature, climate and food production.

That means reforming SFI so it better supports action for nature, while making it easier for farmers to access higher-level schemes that can drive long-term environmental recovery.

The Government should also provide sufficient funding for nature-friendly farming and ensure farmers have the certainty they need to plan for the future.

With the right support, farmers can do even more to help restore nature while producing food sustainably.

Around 70% of our land is farmland, meaning the way we farm plays a major role in the future of our wildlife.

Nature-friendly farming can be one of the key tools to reverse nature’s decline by restoring healthy soils, improving water quality and reducing the impacts of climate change. It can also help make farms more resilient to floods, droughts and other extreme weather.

Many of our most-loved farmland species, from skylarks and yellowhammers to pollinators such as bees and butterflies, depend on farmland that provides space for nature.

By investing in farming schemes that work for nature, we can help create a countryside where farmers, wildlife and food production thrive together.