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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps she is taking to support restorative and regenerative farming and agriculture across the UK.

We are speeding up and refining the rollout of our Environmental Land Management schemes, so they work for farmers, support resilient and sustainable food production and contribute to our ambitious targets including water quality, biodiversity, habitat creation and net zero.

The Countryside Stewardship scheme includes actions that can form part of a regenerative or restorative farming approach; to improve soil quality, enhance biodiversity, decrease water pollution and restore, create and manage habitats. We are expanding the Countryside Stewardship scheme to make around 30 additional actions available to farmers by the end of 2024, as well as targeting our funding towards actions in places where they can have the biggest impacts, in ways that are joined up across larger areas.

Later this year, we will open the next round of Countryside Stewardship Mid Tier, Higher Tier and Wildlife Offers for farmers and land managers wanting to start their agreements in January 2024.

Organic farmers will continue to have access to the Countryside Stewardship organic options, and other actions that may be relevant such as those relating to grassland, arable land, permanent crops, boundaries, waterbodies, and woodland and trees.

The Sustainable Farming Incentive scheme was launched in June 2022. Farmers and land managers can apply for the scheme at any time, through a simple application process. People with a Sustainable Farming Incentive agreement can also have a Countryside or Environmental Stewardship agreement, so long as we are not paying for the same actions twice on the same piece of land, and the actions for which we are paying are compatible.

The Sustainable Farming Incentive scheme contains standards that can support a regenerative approach and are designed so that there are options available for all types of farmer. The three standards available now are:

• arable and horticultural soils
• improved grassland soils
• moorland (introductory level)

The six new standards being rolled out in 2023 are:

• hedgerows standard
• integrated pest management standard
• nutrient management standard
• arable and horticultural land standard
• improved grassland standard
• low input grassland standard