Rural Payments Agency
This section explains the mandatory scheme requirements for eligibility of common land or an area of shared grazing to be entered into a Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) agreement.
You should read this information with the other SFI scheme information which applies to allSFIagreements. This information will be kept under review asSFIis rolled out.
Definition of common land and shared grazing
For the purposes of anSFIagreement, common land means:
- land registered as common land in a register of common land kept under Part 1 of the Commons Act 2006
- land to which Part 1 of that Act does not apply and which is subject to rights of common within the meaning of that Act
Shared grazing means communal pasture that is not registered as common land where graziers have a legal entitlement to graze. For example, a pasture used jointly by tenants.
The following information about commons also applies to areas of shared grazing.
Applying for an SFI agreement on common land
You must enter common land or an area of shared grazing into its ownSFIagreement. The agreement cannot include other land you own or rent that is not common land.
This means that you must submit separate SFI applications for:
- the common land or shared grazing, using the existing single entitys Single Business Identifier (SBI) or a newSBIif a single entity needs to be set up
- land you own or rent that is not common land, using theSBIfor your own business
Eligibility to enter common land into an SFI agreement
To enter common land into anSFI agreement, you must:
- meet the Basic Payment Scheme (BPS) eligibility requirement for common land
- be a single entity, either as a sole beneficiary or a group
- have a formal, legally enforceable internal arrangement for a group
- have sufficient management control of the common land to complete the SFI actions for the duration of the 3-yearSFI agreement
The following information explains each of these requirements.
BPSeligibility requirement for common land
To apply for an SFI agreement on common land, one or more people need to have been eligible to use the common to claim the BPS in 2021, 2022 or 2023. They do not need to have claimed BPS or to have received BPS payments in the past.
Only a single entity can apply foran SFI agreementon common land
Only a single entity can enter into anSFIagreement on a common. This is to make sure that, where there is a group, the SFI actions in theSFI agreement can be delivered by the single entity for the agreements 3-year duration.
A single entity can be:
- a person who will be the sole beneficiary
- a group of 2 or more people with a formal, legally enforceable internal arrangement between them, a nominated representative and a single bank account
A sole beneficiary will usually be a landowner who owns the whole common and has sole use and rights to the common.
A common may already have a single entity to oversee:
- an existing Countryside Stewardship (CS) or Higher Level Stewardship (HLS) agreement on the common
- general management of the common
It should be possible for the group to extend the scope of the existing single entity (provided it meets the 4 criteria explained below for a new single entity). This single entity should apply for SFI, using the SBI it already has.
There should not be more than one single entity overseeing an agri-environment scheme agreement for the same area of land on the common. This includesCS,HLSandSFI.
If a group has not already set up a single entity to oversee an existing CS or HLS agreement, or the general management of the common, it will need to do this before it applies for an SFI agreement on the common. It must register on the Rural Payments service to obtain a new SBI, even if some of the members already have their own SBIs individually.
Its up to the group to decide how the new single entity is set up, but it must have:
- a main business contact identified for Rural Payments Agency (RPA) (the nominated representative)
- a bank account thats registered with RPA
- a formal, legally enforceable internal arrangement between the single entitys members to deal with any breaches of the agreement that may lead to RPA recovering payments
- sufficient management control of the common land to complete land management actions for the duration of the 3-yearSFIagreement
You can find more information about management control under Common land eligibility below.
You may find it helpful to read theCS guidance about setting up a commons association or an internal agreement for common land and shared grazing. Where thisCSguidance uses the word must or should, that requirement applies to aCSagreement, not anSFIagreement.
In setting up the single entity you may want to consider issues such as:
- how changes in membership will be dealt with
- how payments will be distributed among members
- whether the nominated representative will give permission in the Rural Payments service for other members to view the relevant documentation
- how disputes will be resolved within the group
You do not have to submit a copy of your formal internal arrangement to us, but you must supply this evidence to us if we ask for it.
Additional payment for a single entity on common land
To help with the costs of administering anSFIagreement on common land, there is an annual additional payment of 7 per hectare of eligible common land entered into its ownSFIagreement.
This additional payment is available to single entities involving a group of 2 or more people entering common land into anSFI agreement.
In future, as more SFI actions are made available, this additional payment will continue to be paid per hectare of eligible common land entered into an SFI agreement.
This payment will be kept under review asSFIis rolled out.
Common land eligibility
An area of common land is eligible to be entered into anSFIagreement if:
- its wholly located in England
- its eligible for the SFI actions chosen
- the single entity will have sufficient management control of the common land for the duration of the 3-yearSFI agreement<