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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment his Department has made of the potential impact of the closure of the Sustainable Farming Incentive on the viability of family farms.

50,000 farm businesses are already in agri-environmental schemes. We will open up initial applications for Countryside Stewardship Higher tier and a revised Environmental Land Management capital grants offer later in the Summer.

On the 11th of March 2025 we published forecasts which suggest that Average Farm Business Income has risen in 2024/25 across all farm types with the exception of cereal farms. This follows a fall in income for most farm types in 2023/24, after some exceptional highs in the two preceding years.

For all farm types, except for Cereals, expected reductions in Direct Payments have been completely offset by projected increases in other Farm Business Income components in 2024/25.