English On Tuesday evening the Department for Environment, Farming and Rural Affairs (Defra) announced that they are no longer accepting applications for the Sustainable Farming Initiative (SFI). The announcement came with no prior warning to farmers, many of whom – our own members included – have now been left with little or no option to access the government support they need.
In their press release, Defra celebrated the announcement as a budgetary success, with the Minister of State for Food Security and Rural Affairs Daniel Zeichner commenting that “More farmers are now in schemes and more money is being spent through them than ever before… We have now successfully allocated the SFI24 budget as promised.”
The LWA’s Campaigns Coordinator Jyoti Fernandes attended an emergency meeting with Defra civil servants on Wednesday morning, where they formally broke the news to key stakeholders in the farming community:
“Everyone in the meeting was furious. The closure of the SFI to new applications has come as a total shock. Farming organisations and advisers who have been working with farmers felt betrayed in that meeting, and this reflects the attitude of the whole farming community.
Yes it was a limited budget, and they can’t spend more than what was allocated, but DEFRA should have predicted this and put measures in place to cap the size of SFI payments, so that large landowners didn’t take more than their fair share, and enough money was set aside to support small farms.”
The announcement landed with many of our members whilst they were part way through their application processes. The 5 hectare eligibility threshold for the SFI was only lifted in July 2024, and many small farmers and growers have spent the months since attempting to navigate the complex and cumbersome application process.
LWA Member Edwin Brooks, a market gardener from Hampshire said:
“I was looking forward to working with my landlords to put the five hectares of land that we use to grow vegetables for our local community into organic conversion. The SFI payment was set to contribute to the cost of conversion.
To close applications so abruptly with no prior warning – especially at a time of year when farmers have already started to put into practice a lot of the things that they were going to be claiming for – is a massive blow.
This affects me both personally as a tenant farmer, as someone who was in the process of formulating my application, but it also affects all of us who care about the environment and the food that we eat.”
At present it is unclear what the future of SFI will be, with the Minister saying only that a revised version will be announced in the coming months. The new iteration of the scheme may have a cap on payments, but it remains unclear what these reforms will look like.
The Government has also said they plan to work towards non-budgetary measures to support farmers’ incomes, such as policies around public procurement and protecting British standards in trade deals. While we support these measures, Defra also needs to take immediate action to support farms who have been left behind by SFI24.
We suggest that in the immediate term the Government opens a new emergency scheme to support small and family farms, who have always operated at a disadvantage in the market and through policy, to access the funds they would have received through SFI. This scheme should operate as an interim solution until a new reformed support system is put in place.
It is clear that Labour government has begun their tenure in government with a series of policies that have left farmers of all types and sizes facing uncertainty at a time when our food system and its workers are in clear need of support.
Before the spending review which is due in late spring, we need to lobby hard for a bigger budget to support farmers and a sustainable food system. Farming needs a pay rise, not a pay cut, and those who work the land to produce our food must be adequately supported and treated with dignity and respect. Whatever form SFI takes it must be inclusive and accessible to all farms, including those under 5ha.
We stand in solidarity with all of our members who are feeling frustrated and exasperated this week, and encourage everyone to turn this rage into action.
Take action:
– Join us at the Food in Our Hands march in London on April 26th to mobilise for more support for farmers and food producers. We will be including a better and fairer SFI as one of our key demands.
– Sign the petition for a bigger budget for nature-friendly farming. Click here to sign.
– Take part in our survey to help make sure that any new SFI scheme works for small farmers and growers. Click here to complete the survey.
Image credit: Black Bark Films
