The road ahead for SFI applicants

With the better-than-expected news in this week’s spending review, CLA members in England can be assured that Environmental Land Management (ELM) schemes, including the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI), will continue to be funded for the foreseeable future.

When it comes to the now-closed SFI expanded offer, there are various loose ends to tie up, which take some unravelling. Looking at the potential candidates who were hoping to submit SFI expanded offer applications, the picture is decidedly messy. However, the good news is that the Rural Payments Agency (RPA) is planning on accepting applications for around 4,000 further SFI expanded offer agreements. These agreements are grouped into various cohorts, with different rules applying.

When the scheme closure was announced on the 11 March 2025, this came alongside the news that a very small group of land managers would still be permitted to submit an application. This included the following groups:

• Those that had been SFI pilot participants
• Those that faced technical issues submitting their application and had notified the RPA
• Those that had tried to submit on the 11 March, but had faced a specific technical issue
• Those that had requested assistance with the online application process

The RPA will now write to these applicants this week, notifying them of the next steps.

Separately, we have a group in the ‘decision re-take’ category. This is a much larger group of around 3,000 applicants, that started their applications before 12 January 2025, but did not submit before 11 March. On 12 May, following the prospect of a legal challenge, Daniel Zeichner, the Farming Minister confirmed this group would be permitted to submit SFI applications after all, but these would be subject to different rules to others in the expanded offer, including:

• A cap on agreement value of £9,300 (this does not include the management payment, which is a maximum of £1,000/year)
• The number of applications will be limited to one per Single Business Identifier
• Agreement holders will not be able to add more land to rotational SFI actions after the first year of their agreement

In order for the RPA to accept new SFI applications, they will need to remove partially completed applications that remain on the system. Their plan is to give agreement holders two weeks to download and save their applications, before removing them from the system in late June. It is important for those in the ‘decision retake’ category to note the change in rules which may mean a like-for-like application cannot be submitted, particularly if their previous application value exceeded £9,300/year.

There is no date yet for the application system to re-open to this group, though this will be communicated via a separate RPA letter. It is thought the application window will open for a six-week period later this summer.

In terms of the relaunch of the scheme, the CLA has been actively participating in Defra workshops, and we expect to continue working with Defra on this over the summer.

More news is expected in July, though expectations are that the new version of the scheme will not relaunch until 2026.