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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many agreements under (a) the Sustainable Farming Incentive and (b) other agri-environment schemes are due to expire between 1 September 2026 and 1 March 2027; what the total annual value of those agreements is, broken down by scheme; and whether she plans to offer extensions or transitional support to farmers whose agreements expire before the 2027 application window opens.

The Sustainable Farming Incentive 2026 (SFI26) Window 2 was open to all eligible farmers and land managers in England. Defra assessed that demand for Window 2 was likely to be strong because more than 20,000 existing Environmental Land Management revenue agreements were due to expire before the end of the financial year.

To support these agreement holders, Defra introduced functionality allowing eligible applicants with soon-to-expire agreements to apply for SFI26 before their existing agreement ended. Around 12,500 applications were submitted before the available Window 2 budget was fully allocated, of which around 8,800 were from businesses with agreements due to expire on or before 28 February 2027.