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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what recent assessment she has made of the effectiveness of the Sustainable Farming Incentive.

The Sustainable Farming Incentive opened for applications in June 2022. To date we have received over 1,700 eligible applications and more than 1,400 agreements are live. We have received positive feedback from farmers about how quick and easy it is to apply for an SFI agreement, that they are paid quarterly and have flexibility to choose how to deliver actions in their agreement.

The Sustainable Farming Incentive is being introduced incrementally between now and 2025, and as the offer is expanded, we expect uptake to accelerate.

We have plans in place to monitor the effectiveness of the scheme as farmers join and the offer is expanded and continue to learn from our SFI Pilot and Environmental Land Management Tests and Trials.