Environmental Land Management Schemes

In the October 2024 budget, we committed £5 billion for farming over two years, including £1.8 billion for our environmental land management (ELM) schemes - the largest ever budget directed at sustainable food production and nature’s recovery in our country’s history. ELM schemes remain at the centre of our offer for farmers and nature, and we have more than half of farmers in an ELM scheme, putting us on the path to a more resilient and sustainable farming sector.

Evaluation has shown that improvements like the simplified Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) application process have reduced barriers to scheme access. Clearly stated requirements and proportionate, regular payments are also viewed positively by participants. With uptake of SFI meeting expectations, ongoing evaluation will ensure we understand and address any further barriers to participation. We are aware of challenges for some farmers trying to move from existing Higher Level Stewardship agreements to new SFI agreements and are working to resolve this over time.

We publish regular statistics on farm income in England and other data related to farm businesses. For example, on 14 November 2024, we published our Farm Business Income statistics (Farm business income - GOV.UK), which looked at how farm business income has changed in 2023/24, including the contribution of Direct Payments and agri-environment payments to farm incomes. Farming evidence packs have been recently updated including key statistics and farm performance (Farming statistics evidence packs - GOV.UK). These set out an extensive range of data to provide an overview of agriculture in the UK. We will continue to carry out appropriate and timely assessments of our interventions to inform policy development.