SFI26: Farmers Deserve Better

At GFW, our Rural Team works alongside farmers every day, helping businesses navigate policy changes, environmental schemes and long-term business planning. Following the events surrounding SFI26 Window 2, Partner and Rural Team Lead, Elliot Taylor, has written an open letter to Defra, the Rural Payments Agency and the Government ministers responsible for farming, food, rural affairs and the environment.

The letter reflects concerns raised by farmers and advisers across the industry regarding the application process, the availability of funding and the need for greater certainty as the sector looks ahead to SFI27.

An Open Letter to Defra, the Rural Payments Agency and the Government Ministers Responsible for Farming, Food, Rural Affairs and the Environment

SFI26: Farmers Deserve Better

I am writing as a farm business consultant who spends every working day talking to farmers about their businesses, their cash flow, their investments and, increasingly, how they are expected to navigate an agricultural policy environment that seems to change almost as quickly as the weather.

What happened with SFI26 Window 2 was not good enough.

The application window opened at around 10am on Tuesday 22 September and closed at 3:48pm, when the entire £253 million budget had been allocated.

The speed of uptake demonstrates something important. Farmers want to participate. They want to improve soils, protect water, enhance biodiversity, manage habitats and make their businesses more resilient while continuing to produce food. The demand was there. The funding was not sufficient to meet it.

This should not simply be viewed as a successful example of strong demand. It should be seen as a warning.

Farmers need certainty

For many farmers, the most frustrating aspect was not simply that the money ran out. It was the uncertainty surrounding the opening itself.

Farmers knew the date. They knew funding was limited. They knew demand was expected to be high. What they did not know was precisely when the application service would open.

September is not a quiet month on a farm. Harvest, drilling, livestock, grassland management, machinery, contractors and staff do not stop because a government application window is about to open.

Farmers should have been able to plan their day. Instead, many were left checking their RPA accounts and waiting for the starting gun.

For the many eligible farmers who had been waiting months for the opportunity to apply, the message was effectively ‘you have a chance to apply but you had better be ready, and you had better be quick’. That is not a sustainable agricultural policy. Farming should not be a race to press a button fastest.

What does “fair” mean?

Defra has described SFI26 as a “simpler and fairer” scheme. Yet the reality for many farmers and their advisers was a highly pressurised application process, with significant preparation required before an application could even be submitted.

Farmers and agents have had to consider business registration, SBIs, digital maps, land covers, eligible areas, management control, consents, existing agreements, incompatible actions and other requirements.

There were also reports from farmers and advisers of technical difficulties with the application system and difficulties contacting the RPA during the opening period.

Defra’s subsequent response raises a further question about fairness.

In its update following the closure of Window 2, Defra stated that two small “exception groups” would be allowed to continue with their applications: farmers requiring “assisted digital” support from the RPA, and farmers who were prevented from applying because of a technical issue with the application service. These farmers, however, had to have contacted the RPA before Window 2 closed.

How was a farmer or adviser supposed to know that this was the necessary course of action while simultaneously trying to resolve an application and facing a rapidly depleting budget?

If an application was prevented by a technical problem, the priority for the farmer and adviser was understandably to try to resolve that problem and submit the application. If the RPA could not be contacted promptly, or the problem remained unresolved while the funding was being allocated, the farmer could lose the opportunity altogether.

The distinction is important. A farmer who successfully submitted an application before the money ran out is treated differently from a farmer who was equally eligible, equally prepared and equally willing to enter the scheme, but whose application was prevented by a technical issue or who required assisted digital support.

That does not feel like a fair or genuinely accessible application process.

I would therefore ask Government to explain how many farmers fell into these circumstances, how many contacted the RPA before the window closed, how quickly those contacts were responded to, and how many otherwise eligible farmers were unable to secure an agreement because they could not complete the process before the funding was exhausted.

A scheme described as “simpler and fairer” should not depend upon farmers knowing, in advance, precisely how to navigate an exceptional failure in the application process while the clock is running down.

When funding is exhausted within hours, these are not minor inconveniences. A technical problem, an incorrect field area or an application that cannot be submitted in time can potentially have significant financial consequences for a farming business.

It was expected to be a “controlled rollout”

What exactly was “controlled” about this? Defra said before the launch that the application service would initially be tested with a small number of farmers in a controlled way before full rollout. The current SFI26 guidance also states that the RPA would open applications in a controlled way. I would genuinely like to understand what “controlled” means in this context.

I personally submitted several expressions of interest on behalf of clients seeking to apply early, but despite doing so, I have received no acknowledgement or further communication from the RPA regarding those requests.

From the perspective of farmers and farm business advisers, the process did not feel controlled. It felt frantic, it felt like a scramble, and unfortunately it felt entirely predictable.

The funding tells its own story

The £233 million made available for Window 2 was substantial. The additional £50 million announced in August was welcome, as was the £3 million carried forward from Window 1. The additional £20m announced in Defra’s Farming Blog on 22 September after the Window 2 closed was also necessary. However, the speed at which the entire budget was allocated demonstrates that demand significantly exceeded available funding.

The NFU had warned Government that the budget would not meet demand, and following the closure it called for urgent clarity on the future of SFI and the position of farmers who missed out.

This is important because farming businesses are making long-term decisions against a difficult backdrop of volatile commodity prices, high input costs, changing support payments and difficult weather conditions.

The Government is asking farmers to make long-term commitments to environmental management and resilience. For that to work, farmers need confidence that the support being offered will be accessible when they are ready to commit.

So, what now?

I would ask Defra and the RPA to provide clear answers to five questions:

First: How many eligible farm businesses attempted, or intended, to apply for SFI26 Window 2, and how many will ultimately receive an agreement? Additionally, how many expressed an interest in applying for SFI26 Window 2 and how many were invited to join the scheme early?

Second: How many farmers were unable to submit an application because of technical problems with the RPA system? Additionally, how many contacted the RPA before the window closed and how many contacted the RPA after the window closed.

Third: How many applications were abandoned or remained incomplete when the funding was exhausted?

Fourth: What additional funding, if any, will be made available to eligible farmers who were willing and prepared to enter SFI26 but were unable to secure an agreement?

Fifth: When will farmers be given firm details of SFI27, including its budget, eligibility, application process and opening date?

The last question is particularly important. Defra has confirmed that eligible farmers who did not secure an SFI26 agreement will have another opportunity to apply for SFI in 2027, but farmers need more than reassurance. They need a route forward. They need a clear timeline and how and when it will be delivered considering the issues experienced in SFI26.

Farmers deserve better

I have spent much of my professional life advising farming businesses. Farmers are resilient people. They are used to dealing with weather they cannot control, markets they cannot control and political decisions they cannot control. What they can control is how they plan. That is why certainty matters.

Farmers are not asking for an open-ended cheque from Government. They understand that public money has to be prioritised and that budgets are finite. They are asking for a support system that is transparent, predictable, accessible and capable of being planned around.

They deserve to know when an application window is opening. They deserve an application system that works. They deserve enough time to make considered decisions about entering three-year agreements.

Those of us who work alongside farmers, farm business consultants, agents and other rural professionals, deserve a system that allows us to properly support our clients rather than asking them to participate in a six-hour race against the clock.

Farmers are the people producing our food and managing our countryside. They are also being asked to deliver many of the environmental outcomes Government wants to achieve.

The extraordinary demand for SFI26 should therefore be viewed positively. It demonstrates the ambition that exists within English farming.

However, it also sends a clear message to Government: Farmers want to deliver. The system needs to give them the opportunity to do so.

Tuesday’s six-hour SFI26 Window 2 should not simply be remembered as a popular scheme running out of money. It should be remembered as a warning that the ambition of English farmers to deliver for food, farming and the environment is greater than the funding and systems currently available to support them.

Government should listen to that message and act on it.

I look forward to your replies.

Yours sincerely