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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment she has made about the number of farmers with environmental agreements expiring before the end of February 2027, that may apply for the SFI26 Scheme.

The Sustainable Farming Incentive 2026 (SFI26) Window 2 was open to all eligible farmers and land managers in England. Defra assessed that demand for Window 2 was likely to be strong because more than 20,000 existing Environmental Land Management revenue agreements were due to expire before the end of the financial year. To support these agreement holders, Defra introduced functionality allowing eligible applicants with soon-to-expire agreements to apply for SFI26 before their existing agreement ended. Around 12,500 applications were submitted before the available Window 2 budget was fully allocated, of which around 8,800 were from businesses with agreements due to expire on or before 28 February 2027.