GovWire

If youre a farmer, land manager or forester, you can apply for money to help you improve farm productivity and the environment.

Before you apply for a payment, youll need to check you (and your land, if relevant) are eligible.

You can apply for more than one of the available payments if:

• you meet the eligibility requirements for each payment
• the activities or outcomes youre being paid for are compatible
• you will not be paid twice for a similar activity or outcome at the same time (and on the same area of land if its a land-based scheme)

Ongoing payments

Ongoing payments are for activities that usually take you a year or more to complete.

Managing your land in an environmentally sustainable way

If you were eligible for the Basic Payment Scheme (BPS) in 2022 or 2023, you can apply for the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI).

SFI is a 3-year agreement made up of a choice of environmental land management actions you need to complete to receive payment. These actions will help you manage your land in a more sustainable way. The number of actions will expand each year until the full range is available by early 2025.

Applications are temporarily closed but will reopen this summer. You can then apply for up to 23 actions, that youre eligible for, towards improving:

• soil health
• moorland assessment
• hedgerows
• integrated pest management
• nutrient management
• farmland wildlife on arable and horticultural land
• farmland wildlife on improved grassland
• buffer strips
• low input grassland

Read the guidance for SFI 2023 to get ready to apply.

Managing habitats, woodlands, flood risk and reducing water pollution

You can apply for Countryside Stewardship (CS) to get paid to manage habitats, woodland, flood risk and reduce water pollution.

CS Mid Tier offers ongoing and one-off payments to protect and improve:

• the diversity of wildlife
• water quality
• air quality
• natural flood management

You can apply from March 2023.

CS Higher Tier offers ongoing and one-off payments to help manage environmentally important sites, including commons and woodlands.

You can apply for a CS Higher Tier now. Your initial application must be submitted by 28 April 2023.

During 2023 and 2024, Defra will evolve CS instead of developing a new Local Nature Recovery scheme. Read Defras environmental land management update to find out about the environmental land management actions that will be available in CS.

Large scale landscape and ecosystem restoration projects

Landscape Recovery pays groups of farmers and land managers to do long-term, large-scale projects together.

You can apply to join the scheme if youre planning to do a landscape-scale project that supports:

• net zero

• protected sites

• wildlife-rich habitat

Apply for Landscape Recovery funding until midday on 21 September 2023.

Planting trees

The England Woodland Creation Grant (EWCO) provides funding to create new woodland on areas that are at least 1 hectare.

You can apply for EWCO at any time of the year until the scheme closes and these activities are funded through CS.

There are other grants available for woodland creation, maintenance, management and tree health.

There are also other regional funding opportunities to create woodland, such as:

• Englands Community Forests - funding is available for planting trees in some areas
• The Northern Forest - you can get paid to create woodland in parts of Lancashire, Merseyside, Yorkshire, Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire
• The National Forest - money is available to create and maintain forests across the country

Planning woodland

The Woodland Creation Planning Grant (WCPG) provides funding to prepare a Woodland Creation Design Plan that complies with the UK Forestry Standard.

You can use this plan to support further woodland creation grant applications, such as EWCO.

You can apply for WCPG at any time of the year.

Restoring peatlands

The Nature for Climate Peatland Grant Scheme (NCPGS) provides funding to restore peatlands in uplands and lowlands of England.

From April 2023, youll be able to apply for restoration grants to fund landscape scale restoration work on degraded peatlands.

The scheme will run until 2025.

Joining farming

We want to support new entrants to develop successful land-based businesses in England. Were exploring how best to do this through 5 pilots. For the latest progress, read the Defra blog post New Entrant Support Scheme: an update on our pilots.

One-off payments

One-off payments are to help you buy equipment or other capital items, or for activities you do once.

Investing in equipment, technology and infrastructure

The Farming Investment Fund (FIF) provides grants between 1,000 and 500,000 to improve productivity, the environment and animal health and welfare.

You can apply for:

• productivity and slurry items
• animal health and welfare items from March

The other FIF grants are currently closed to new applicants, but there will be further application rounds.

Research and innovation

You can apply for grants for innovation, research and development from the Farming Innovation Programme.

Improving animal health and welfare

Farmers who keep cattle, sheep or pigs can get funding to pay for a vet or vet-lead team to visit their farm and carry out an annual health and welfare review. If youre a Basic Payment Scheme (BPS) eligible farmer, you can <

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