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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many farmers had agreements under the Environmental Land Management Scheme as of 26 February 2024.

As of 26 February, the Rural Payments Agency had offered 14,035 Sustainable Farming Incentive (including SFI Pilot, SFI 2022 and SFI 2023) agreements with 12,903 accepted and 48,665 agreements under the Countryside Stewardship and Environmental Stewardship schemes. Farmers can have more than one agreement in schemes.

In addition, from the launch of the Farming in Protected Landscapes programme (July 2021) to the end of 2022/23 (March 2023), there were over 5,000 farmers and land managers engaged in the programme and over 2,500 projects approved.

Further to this, there are also 22 projects in Round One of the Landscape Recovery Scheme, with a combined total of 266 landowners and 51 tenant farmers. There are 34 projects in Round Two of the Landscape Recovery Scheme; however, the number of landowners and tenant farmers cannot be confirmed yet, as they are currently being enrolled onto the scheme.