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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment he has made of the potential impact of the closure of the Sustainable Farming Initiative on food security.

This Government is proud to have secured the largest budget for sustainable food production in our country’s history, with £5 billion being spent to support farmers over a 2-year period. Farm businesses with existing Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) agreements or submitted applications will see no change to their payments due to the announced closure of SFI. Forecasts published this week suggest that at the all-farm level agri-environment scheme payments are predicted to have increased substantially in 24/25.

Food security requires a long-term picture of resilience to shocks while the closure of SFI is a temporary measure, 30,000 businesses are already being supported through SFI with more in other schemes and will be for the next three years

Now is the right time for a reset: supporting farmers, delivering for nature and targeting public funds fairly and effectively towards our priorities for food, farming and nature.

This Government has recently announced a raft of new policies to help boost profits for farmers which will support continued food security. The revised capital grants will be reopened, providing access to items which boost farm productivity. We are extending the Seasonal Worker visa route for five more years, backing British produce in government catering contracts, and investing £110 million in agri-technology. A new commissioner for the tenant farming sector will be appointed, and a veterinary agreement with the EU will be sought to ease export red tape. The government will also protect farmers from low welfare trade deals and lower energy bills by connecting renewable energy to the National Grid.

Other measures include a land-use framework for food security and nature recovery, a Cross-Government Rural Crime Strategy, and a British Infrastructure Council to drive private investment in rural areas.

The Government is also committed to making the supply chain fairer, with upcoming reviews on the pig, egg, poultry, and fresh produce sectors.