Angela Chappelhow

Guidance will be published in May/June prior to the scheme opening in July.  We recommend that if you want to apply that you have all the information ready for when the scheme opens so measure field boundaries, take photos and…

The Sustainable Farming Incentive is expected to open in June for small farms and farms of any size who don’t have an environmental revenue agreement.  Those that have capital grants (e.g. for field boundaries) can apply if they don’t have…

We reported in last week’s ENews that Defra had published its Land Use Framework.  This sets out the Government’s vision to optimise land use across nature, food production, energy generation, housing and climate adaptation. Some key points include: The best…

FETF 2025 CLAIM DEADLINE MIDDAY 31ST MARCH 2026 The deadline for FETF 2025 claims is MIDDAY on 31st March 2026 and guidance on how to claim is here.  Many farmers struggle to find the claim form – it is at…

The Foundation for Common Land has reported that Defra and the RPA have this week acknowledged there is no mechanism for common land to enter either SFI or CS Higher Tier schemes in 2026. FCL says that this is due…

This week the Government published the Farm Business Income (FBI) forecasts for the period from March 2025 to February 2026.  These are estimated figures but particularly show the impact of the weather on the cereal sector, with FBI falling by…

This week, the Rural Payment’s Agency opened the claim window for annual Stewardship revenue claims.  The deadline to submit your revenue claim, without a late claim reduction is 11:59pm on Friday 15th May 2026. This applies to all Stewardship revenue…

The Farming Equipment and Technology Fund opened this week with grants for a range of farm equipment under three themes:  farm productivity, slurry management and animal health and welfare.  The deadline is midday on 28th April with application window perfectly…

£50 million is being made available for the Farming Equipment and Technology Fund, which will open on 17th March.  As was the case last year, there are three separate themes to: improve productivity manage slurry improve animal health and welfare…

At the NFU Conference this week, Emma Reynold’s speech included a number of significant announcements about schemes.  More details below: Key points include: SFI 2026 will open for small farms of less than 50ha and those without existing ELM agreements…