Environmental Consultancy

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

Window 1 - applications now closed

Window 2 - Opens September 2026

Open to:
- All farmers, including those eligible for the first window who did not apply
- An additional £50m of support is available for farms hit by drought

You can expect to see the following changes with the new SFI26 offer:

Agreements will be limited to one per farm,
Annual payments will be capped at £100,000 per year
71 actions available, rather than 102
No management payment on agreements

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.