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

To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to support regenerative agriculture.

Environmental land management (ELM) is the foundation of our new approach to farming. ELM includes the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI). This pays farmers for actions that support food production and can help improve farm productivity and resilience, while protecting and improving the environment. It will support sustainable food production and contribute towards the environmental targets set out in the government’s Environmental Improvement Plan. The SFI 2023 opened for applications on 18 September 2023, and farmers who have a live SFI 2023 agreement before the end of the year will receive an accelerated payment in the first month of their agreement.

ELM’s Landscape Recovery (LR) scheme also supports a regenerative approach to agriculture. It focuses on restoring nature across a wider landscape, bringing together landowners and managers who want to take a more large-scale, long-term approach to producing environmental and climate goods on their land.  Projects involving elements of regenerative farming can apply. Round two LR pilot applications closed on 21 September 2023, but we have committed to launching a further round in 2024 and expect to continue to launch at least annual rounds in future years as we scale the scheme up.

Our 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 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.

We are also offering farmers and land managers, including those who take a regenerative approach, funding for equipment, technology, and infrastructure that improves farm productivity and benefits the environment through the Farming Investment Fund. This offers funding for equipment, technology, and infrastructure that improves farm productivity and benefits the environment.

The Farming Innovation Programme encourages groups of farmers, growers, businesses, and researchers to get involved in collaborative research and development. Farmers testing out regenerative approaches to agriculture will be able to apply for these grants, and we believe that by working together, they will be able to solve challenges and exploit opportunities for increasing productivity and environmental sustainability in the agricultural and horticultural sectors in England.