Grants

By Tim Harfield · 10 min read · 18 March 2026

UK Farming Scheme — Tim’s take: The honest answer to “which scheme should I be in” is almost never “all of them” and rarely “whichever pays most per hectare”. It is “the one that fits the land you actually farm, the tenancy you actually hold, and the work you were going to do anyway”. Most scheme guides start by explaining what each scheme is. This one starts from the question working farms keep asking — given my situation today, where do I look first?

A practical caution before reading on. Scheme rates and action lists move every few months. Anything in this guide presented as a specific payment figure links to the source page where the live number is published, because the figure on a page written today will be wrong by the next round. Treat this guide as a way of structuring the decision, not as a price list.

What this guide does, and what it doesn’t — UK Farming Scheme

This guide covers four things English farms operate within: the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI), Countryside Stewardship (CS), Landscape Recovery, and the Environmental Land Management (ELM) framework that holds them together. It does not cover scheme detail you can read directly on gov.uk — payment rates, eligible actions, application portals — because those move and the official source is always more current than a guide. What this guide does is help you decide which scheme to look at first, based on your farm type, your tenancy, and what you actually need money for.

Devolved nations run different equivalents. Scotland’s Rural Payments and Services schemes, Wales’s incoming Sustainable Farming Scheme, and Northern Ireland’s DAERA grants and funding hub each operate their own framework. The decision logic in this guide applies to all four, but the specific scheme names and rates here are for England.

The four schemes, in plain English

Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI)

SFI is the scheme most working farms in England now interact with. It pays per action — for example, for managing a hedgerow to a defined standard, or for maintaining a herbal ley — rather than at a tiered “introductory / advanced” level some older write-ups still describe. Actions are picked from a published menu and combined into a three-year agreement. Live action menu and current rates are at the SFI handbook on gov.uk.

Countryside Stewardship (CS)

CS sits in two real tiers in practice — Mid Tier (revenue-style management options) and Higher Tier (more complex, often habitat- or landscape-priority agreements that go through Natural England). Capital items (fencing, hedge planting, water infrastructure, machinery for environmental ends) are funded through capital grant rounds, which open and close. Live menu, eligibility and current rates at the Countryside Stewardship grants finder.

Landscape Recovery

Landscape Recovery is the long-horizon, large-scale tier of ELM. Projects are typically 20+ years, run across multiple holdings, and aim at outcomes like floodplain restoration, native woodland creation at scale, or species recovery. It is the right tier for a small minority of farms — usually those in upland landscapes, or with neighbours willing to pool land into a single agreement. Application rounds are competitive and intermittent. The Landscape Recovery application guidance sets out the current round’s terms.

Environmental Land Management (ELM)

ELM is the policy framework, not a separate scheme you apply to. It is the umbrella Defra uses to describe SFI, CS and Landscape Recovery as a single replacement for the area-based payments that ended with Basic Payment Scheme (BPS). When a guide says “the ELMS scheme” as if it were a discrete pot of money, that’s a misunderstanding worth catching early — the money sits in the three schemes underneath. Background reading on the framework is at the Defra ELM policy update.

Decide by farm type

The single most useful filter is what you actually farm. Five rough buckets covering most English holdings:

Predominantly arable, owner-occupied

SFI is almost certainly your first read. The actions that suit conventional and regenerative arable rotations — soil management plans, herbal leys, no-insecticide actions, integrated pest management plans, low-input grassland — sit in the SFI menu. CS Mid Tier becomes relevant once you have hedgerows, ditches or margins you want to manage actively. The arable guide covers the rotation context. Capital you might want — fencing, water troughs for grazed leys, equipment with an environmental purpose — is in the periodic capital grant rounds; the most recent round is covered in the SFI 2026 capital grants guide.

Mixed arable and livestock

SFI first, again. Mixed farms tend to have more habitat features — hedges, copses, ditch networks, permanent pasture — that quietly tick eligibility on more SFI actions than they realise. CS Mid Tier is the natural second look once the SFI agreement is in. Where you graze something on land that also wants management for biodiversity, that is exactly the conflict zone the double-funding rules are written for; budget time for that check rather than assuming you can claim both.

Lowland livestock, conventional grazing

SFI’s grassland actions are the entry point — the maintained low-input grassland actions, the species-rich grassland actions, and the supplementary feeding-related actions where applicable. CS Mid Tier becomes more interesting if any of your land is in a target area for water quality, biodiversity, or flood mitigation. The targeting maps that drive CS priority are at the CS grants finder — worth checking your parcels before assuming you don’t qualify.

Upland and hill livestock

This is the bucket where Higher Tier CS or Landscape Recovery genuinely matter. Upland and hill farms typically sit in landscape-priority areas — moorland, common land, upland in-bye — that Mid Tier and SFI alone don’t fully fit. Higher Tier agreements tend to be the better revenue route because they are designed for the longer commitment cycle these systems run on. Landscape Recovery is realistic only where you can collaborate with neighbouring holdings; the AHDB has tracked the SFI rollout for upland systems in detail. Tim’s framing is observer here — upland livestock isn’t a system he runs — but the policy direction is consistent: the long-term money in the uplands sits in CS Higher Tier and Landscape Recovery rather than at the SFI level.

Specialist horticulture, salad, top fruit, soft fruit

SFI relevance for specialist horticulture is action-by-action and rarely scheme-wide. The protected-cropping side of horticulture often falls outside the actions altogether — the actions are written for arable rotations and grassland systems. Where field-grown horticulture sits next to permanent features (hedges, ponds, margins), those features carry their own SFI eligibility. Worth checking the action menu line by line rather than assuming the scheme isn’t for your sector. Capital grants for horticulture-relevant equipment have appeared in past rounds; whether they are open today is a gov.uk check.

Diversified or non-traditional holdings

The first question is whether the parcels you want to enter are agricultural land in the scheme’s definition. Glamping fields, equine paddocks used purely for livery, ground genuinely set aside for a non-agricultural enterprise — these don’t always qualify, even if they sit on the same farm holding. Check your parcel-by-parcel land-use codes on the RPA portal before designing any application. The Class Q/R diversification guide covers the planning side of the same question.

Decide by tenure

Tenure changes what’s available before farm type does. The four common positions:

Owner-occupier

Fewest restrictions. The decision is genuinely about what the land suits and what you want to commit to.

Farm Business Tenancy (FBT)

Two practical constraints to clear before any application. First, landlord consent — most FBTs require it for environmental scheme entry, and some restrict it outright. Second, scheme term versus tenancy term — entering a three-year SFI on a tenancy with eighteen months to run creates an obligation you cannot fulfil. The Tenant Farmers Association publishes guidance on landlord-consent norms when these clash; worth a read before signing anything.

Agricultural Holdings Act tenancy

AHA tenancies operate on different consent rules than FBTs and tend to be longer-running, which makes the term-mismatch problem less acute. Specific scheme entry rules under AHA tenure are landlord-by-landlord; the published guidance on agricultural tenancies and ELM payments is the starting point.

Mixed tenure across blocks

Common case, often handled badly. Schemes are entered parcel-by-parcel, not whole-farm. You can put owned land into an SFI agreement and leave tenanted parcels out, or run different actions on different blocks. The trap is double-funding across the boundary — paying yourself for an SFI action on the owned side that overlaps with a CS action on the tenanted side. RPA’s compliance teams check these at audit, not at application.

Decide by what you actually need: capital or revenue

This filter cuts the four schemes cleanly:

Revenue-only (you want a steady annual payment for management work you’re already doing or can adopt): SFI and CS Mid Tier.
Capital-heavy (you need money for fencing, slurry storage, water infrastructure, equipment with an environmental purpose): the periodic capital grant rounds inside SFI and CS — see the SFI 2026 capital grants guide.
Long-horizon project (woodland creation at scale, peatland restoration, multi-farm species recovery): Landscape Recovery, with the caveat that successful applications are typically backed by collaboration agreements that take a year or more to put together.
Both at once: usually possible — SFI revenue agreements run alongside capital grant items as long as the actions don’t overlap on the same hectare.

Where double-funding rules force a choice

The general principle is plain: the same hectare cannot be paid for the same action under two schemes. The detail is messier because what counts as “the same action” varies, and the published rules update each time SFI or CS is revised.

Common conflict points worth checking line by line before any application:

SFI grassland actions vs CS grassland options on the same field
SFI hedgerow management actions vs CS hedgerow capital items on the same hedge
SFI integrated pest management plans vs CS pest-related options
Tree-planting under any scheme, where multiple woodland funding pots exist (CS, England Woodland Creation Offer, Forestry Commission grants)

The current double-funding rules are set out per action in the relevant scheme handbook. The AHDB publishes accessible summaries when major rule changes land — generally easier to read than the raw handbook updates.

When the right answer is “wait this round”

Three legitimate “wait” cases where engaging with a scheme right now is the wrong call, even if the application window is open:

Tenancy renewal pending. Signing a three-year SFI on a tenancy with twelve months to run is taking on commitments you may not be able to keep. Wait for the renewal first.
Land-use change in motion. If a parcel is going through change-of-use — diversification, sale, conversion to non-agricultural use — locking it into a scheme agreement now creates an exit cost later.
Major scheme revision announced. When Defra signals a substantial revision to an action menu (which has happened more than once), entering on the old terms locks you into rates that may be replaced. The NFU policy team tends to flag these early.

Practical next steps

Pull your latest SBI summary from the Rural Payments portal. It tells you what land-use codes you are recorded against — which drives every eligibility check.
Check the live action menus for SFI and CS at gov.uk against the parcels you actually farm. The five questions to answer when reading Defra scheme guidance covers what to look for.
Cross-reference your CS targeting status — some priority areas materially shift which scheme makes more sense.
If applications start to feel complicated, talk to a Farm Advisory Service adviser, your land agent, or your agronomist before submitting. Most scheme errors are fixable at application; almost none are fixable mid-agreement.
Don’t apply blind. A scheme agreement is a multi-year commitment with audit risk attached.

Frequently asked questions

Can I be in more than one scheme at once?

Yes — SFI and CS run alongside each other on the same farm in the majority of agreements live today. The constraint is per-action, not per-scheme: you cannot be paid twice for the same action on the same hectare. The double-funding rules per action are in the scheme handbooks.

I’m completely new to schemes. What should I read first?

The SFI handbook on gov.uk, then the CS grants finder. Read them with your latest SBI summary open alongside. Most farms find SFI is the realistic starting point because the action set is broader and the application is less competitive than CS Higher Tier or Landscape Recovery.

Does my landlord need to approve a scheme application?

For most Farm Business Tenancies, yes — landlord consent is a normal precondition. For Agricultural Holdings Act tenancies, the rules are different and depend on the agreement. Check your tenancy agreement before doing anything else; the Tenant Farmers Association publishes plain-English guidance on this.

What happens if I drop out of an agreement mid-way?

Depends on why and on the scheme. Voluntary withdrawal usually triggers repayment of payments received — the recovery rules are in each scheme’s handbook. Force majeure exits (severe weather, disease, land lost to compulsory purchase) follow a different process. The published process is at the Rural Payments Agency.

Where do I find the current 2026 payment rates?

The live source is always gov.uk. Specifically: the SFI handbook for SFI rates, the CS grants finder for CS Mid and Higher Tier, and the published Landscape Recovery round documentation. Any guide quoting a specific rate is reliable only on the day it was written; the gov.uk page is the source of truth.

Related guides

Disclaimer: The information in this article is for general guidance only and does not constitute professional agricultural, veterinary, legal, or financial advice. Farming conditions vary — always consult qualified professionals before making decisions about your farm. Grant amounts, deadlines, and regulations are subject to change. See our full terms.