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

To ask His Majesty's Government what percentage of agricultural land is currently covered by countryside and environmental schemes; and what is their target for that coverage.

As of 1 October 2024, there are over 67,000 live agri-environment scheme agreements. This is the most popular accepted scheme agreements have been in history. The area under agri-environment schemes is a statistic that was not collected by the last Government. It is currently under development by Defra and is due for publication in the first half of 2025.

We recently announced that the farming budget will be £5 billion over the next two financial years, including the largest ever budget directed at sustainable food production and nature’s recovery in our country’s history: £1.8 billion for Environmental Land Management (ELM) schemes to boost Britain’s food security and accelerate the transition to a more resilient and sustainable farming sector.