Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether she has had discussions with small farmers on improving the new Sustainable Farming Incentive.

Defra has engaged over 30 stakeholder organisations on the policy design of the SFI26 offer.

This engagement included farmer representatives such as the National Farmers Union and the Tenant Farmers Association, ensuring the views of smaller farm businesses were fully considered.

Defra has utilised the insight gathered from this engagement to develop options and proposals for the new iteration of the scheme.

Later this year Defra will open the Sustainable Farming Incentive offer in two windows: the first from June 2026 for small farms and also farms without existing Environmental Land Management revenue agreements; the second from September for all farms.