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 scheme on farmers who had planned to transition to the new land management practices under the Environmental Land Management scheme; and what plans his Department has to support those farmers.

On 11 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.

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.

50,000 farm businesses are already in agri-environmental schemes. SFI is an important offer, but it is part of a wider package. We remain committed to investing in agri-environment schemes. We plan to launch the new Higher Tier scheme later this year; Capital Grants will re-open in summer 2025; we continue to move forward with Landscape Recovery; and we are increasing payment rates for Higher Level Stewardship agreement holders to recognise their ongoing commitment to delivering environmental outcome.

Funding from the farming budget also supports the provision of advice within the sector. The Farming Advice Service can assist farmers to review what advice and guidance is available to meet their business needs.