Sustainable Farming Incentive

New Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI): Key Facts and Updates 2026

The government has confirmed that a new Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) offer will launch later this year (2026), continuing support for sustainable farming in England while encouraging sector growth.

Following stakeholder feedback, the new SFI has been redesigned to be simpler, fairer and more transparent, giving farmers greater confidence when planning ahead. Full scheme details will be published before the first application window opens.

Application Windows

It has been confirmed that there will be two SFI application windows in 2026:

First window (June 2026)

• Open to:
  • Small farms
  • Farms without an existing environmental land management (ELM) agreement

Second window (September 2026)

• Open to:
  • All farmers, including those eligible for the first window who did not apply

Simplicity and Focus

The new SFI will be streamlined by reducing the number of actions, while still offering a broad range suitable for different farm types. There will be a stronger emphasis on actions that support sustainable food production.

Planned changes include:

• Limits on land taken out of production: The current 10 ‘limited area’ actions are under review, with consideration given to restricting more actions to a small proportion of the farm.
• Review of payment rates: Actions that remove land from production and have seen particularly high uptake may have payment rates reassessed.

Fairness and Accessibility

The government aims to ensure as many farmers as possible can benefit from SFI, supporting its target to double the number of farms providing year-round wildlife resources by December 2030, compared with 2025 levels.

Further details on how this will be achieved will be published ahead of the scheme launch.

Budgets

Clear budgets will be set for each application window.

Budgets will be confirmed before June.

Farmers will receive regular updates as funding nears full allocation.

Application windows will not close without warning.

Definitions

Before the first application window opens, the government will publish:

A clear definition of “small farms”

A definition of “farms with no existing environmental land management agreement”

For eligibility purposes, only ELM agreements administered by the Rural Payments Agency (RPA) will be considered, including:

• SFI (previous versions)
• Countryside Stewardship
• Higher Level Stewardship (HLS)

Other schemes, such as private sector initiatives or Landscape Recovery, will not be included.

Small farms that already hold an ELM agreement will still be eligible to apply in the first window.

We are here to help you to understand the impact on your individual circumstances and to help you navigate the application process. Please don’t hesitate to arrange a call or meeting with your preferred member of staff.