Farmers rush for environmental payments as government package fails to meet demand

On Tuesday 22 September, the 2026 Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) window for all eligible farming applications opened at 10am and closed at 3.48pm, after enough applications had been submitted to commit the available £233 million budget.

For many farmers, this was their first opportunity to apply since the scheme’s sudden closure in March 2025. An earlier window, which closed on 28 August, was limited to smaller farms and farms without an existing Environmental Land Management (ELM) agreement. Farmers and land managers who were unable to submit an application will have to wait for a further SFI offer in 2027.

The rapid uptake demonstrates the scale of demand from farmers to deliver for the environment and invest in the long-term resilience of their farms. It also shows that the available funding falls well short of demand for the scheme.

Farm businesses have faced a difficult year of crop-damaging heat and drought alongside rising input costs. For many, SFI offered a way to invest in the long-term resilience of their land and business.

Alys Bannister, Sustainable Farming Campaign Manager at Sustain, said:

“A scheme that closes in under six hours does not meet the needs of farmers or the environment. Public money for public goods should not become a race based on who can submit an application fastest.

The extraordinary demand shows that farmers are ready to restore soils, protect water, and bring nature back to their land, but the budget is holding that ambition back.

Government must now provide a bigger, multi-year farming budget that matches the scale and pace of change farmers are ready to deliver.”

Sustain alliance members have also raised concerns about how quickly the SFI budget was allocated. Vicki Hird, Strategic Lead for Agriculture at The Wildlife Trusts, compared the rush for funding to “the scramble for Oasis tickets” and called on the Government to provide farmers with the funding needed for nature, food security and national security.

Martin Lines, Chief Executive of the Nature Friendly Farming Network said:

“This entire SFI system, with windows opening and closing within a few hours, isn’t fit for purpose. We need to find a better way based on continuous, whole-farm agreements, not doors that slam shut on day one because the money has already gone.

After this summer of extreme weather and climate change, farmers are relying on these schemes to build resilience, yet the rush to get funding means many are compromising on what they can do just to ensure they have an agreement.

Farmers in England believed we were moving to a system of public money for public goods, and they are desperate to deliver. While the expansion of the budget for this SFI window was welcome, it was clearly not sufficient and the Government needs to recognise the true level of demand for this funding.”

After the SFI window closed, officials from the Department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs (Defra) wrote to applicants noting that the Government plans to offer an SFI scheme in 2027 and “work with…the wider sector to consider how we refine the scheme ahead of SFI opening next year”. While the guarantee of SFI27 welcome, major changes will be needed to prevent the scheme running into the same issues again.

Yesterday’s events show that the current farming budget is not sufficient to meet the scale and pace of change needed for the farming transition.

Consequently, Sustain is calling on the Government to:

• increase the overall farming budget and commit funding over several years, giving farmers greater certainty to plan and invest;
• replace first-come, first-served allocation with a fairer approach that does not disadvantage farmers who are unable to submit an application immediately;
• remove the three-hectare eligibility threshold and create a level playing field for farms of all types and sizes making the transition to sustainable farming.