Rural Payments Agency
Before you apply for a Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) agreement, you need to make sure that:
- youve read and understand the mandatory scheme requirements, which are explained in Read the mandatory scheme requirements below.
- youre eligible to apply
- your land is eligible, and its registered details are up to date on your digital maps
- your contact details are up to date and your permissions are correctly set for SFI in the Rural Payments service
These are explained in more detail below.
Read the mandatory scheme requirements
Before you apply, you should read the mandatory scheme requirements carefully to make sure you understand what youre agreeing to do.
The mandatory scheme requirements are contained in:
- the SFI actions you choose read the Details of the SFI actions
- your SFI agreements terms and conditions which are further explained in eligible land for an SFI agreement and about SFI agreements and payments
When you enter an SFI agreement, youll declare that:
- you understand the mandatory scheme requirements
- youll comply with the mandatory scheme requirements, including that you expect to have management control of the land, for the duration of your 3-year SFI agreement
Check youre eligible to apply for an SFI agreement
To be eligible to apply for an SFI agreement you need to have been a Basic Payment Scheme (BPS) eligible farmer on either 16 May 2022 or 15 May 2023.
This will be the case if, on either of these dates, the Single Business Identifier (SBI) thats applying for an SFI agreement had both of the following:
- at least 5 hectares (ha) of BPS?eligible land this does not set a minimum eligible area you can enter into an SFI agreement as there is no minimum area for an agreement
- 5 or more?BPS?entitlements
Your business (SBI) does not need to have applied for BPS in 2022 or 2023, or to have received BPS payments in the past.
Were currently only allowing BPS eligible farmers to apply for an SFI agreement. This is because their details are already registered with the RPA. In future, well allow a wider range of farmers to apply. This will not happen before 2024.
If you want to apply for an SFI agreement on common land, this BPS eligibility requirement works differently. Read the information on eligibility of common land and shared grazing
What if youve applied for the Lump Sum Exit Scheme
If youve applied for the Lump Sum Exit Scheme in 2022 and received the lump sum payment, you will not usually be eligible to apply for an SFI agreement, unless you repay the lump sum.
The only exception to this is if a partnership or limited company applied for the Lump Sum Exit Scheme and only some of the partners or shareholders left the business. In this case, the remaining partners or shareholders are eligible to apply for an SFI agreement without repaying the lump sum.
Check your land is eligible and its up to date on your digital maps
Before you apply, check that your land is eligible for an SFI agreement. You also need to check that its registered details shown on your digital maps are up to date.
How to view your digital maps
To view your digital maps, sign in to the Rural Payments service. From your Business overview screen, select Land and View land.Common land is not shown on your digital maps. Instead, you can check the maps weve previously provided.
What to check on your digital maps
Check each land parcel youll be including in your SFI application is shown on your digital maps. This means its already registered with us and linked to your SBI. Read the glossary to find out what we mean by an SBI.
You also need to check that each land parcel you want to include in your SFI application has correctly registered:
- land cover(s), which describes the broad category the land is and includes arable land, permanent grassland, permanent crops or non-agricultural area
- permanent boundaries, such as permanent fences, hedgerows, watercourses, as explained in the RLE1 guidance
If these registered land details are not up to date, this may affect the land you can include in your SFI application. If the land details need to be updated, ask us to do this before you apply for an SFI agreement.
Checking land cover
When you view each land parcel on your digital maps in the Rural Payments service, youll see that it has one or more registered land covers. The land cover identifies what broad category the land is.
There are 3 agricultural land covers shown on digital maps:
- arable land
- permanent grassland
- permanent crops
There are also a number of non-agricultural land covers, such as woodland or farm buildings.
For each land parcel you want to use for an SFI action, check that the land cover shown on your digital maps is compatible with the land use code declared for a BPS 2023 application (a compatible land cover).
You can find out which land covers are compatible with each land use code in the details of the SFI actions (under Where you can do this action for each SFI action).
The table below sets out some examples of land use codes and compatible land covers.