'Shattering blow' to farmers over pause to environmental payment scheme

A "shattering blow" has been dealt to farmers with the sudden pausing for new applications for environmental payments, according to the National Farmers' Union.

The NFU says it was given just 30 minutes notice by the government that applications for the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) were to close on Tuesday.

The post-Brexit scheme, launched in 2022, pays farmers and land managers to take up practices that improve productivity and protect the environment and climate.

Politics latest: UK set to be hit by Trump's steel tariffs

There were more than 100 options for farmers to choose from, including the management of hedgerows, organic farming development and providing habitat for wildlife.

The government says the budget for SFI has now been reached, adding that a "record" 50,000 farm businesses and more than half of all farmed land is now managed under the schemes.

Both Conservatives and Liberal Democrat politicians have criticised the move and the lack of any prior warning.

Tory leader Kemi Badenoch said the move demonstrated that Sir Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves "do not care about rural communities".

And NFU president Tom Bradshaw said the decision showed "how little" the Department for Environment, Food And Rural Affairs (Defra) understood the industry.

'Growing disregard for agriculture within Defra'

"This is another shattering blow to English farms, delivered yet again with no warning, no understanding of the industry and a complete lack of compassion or care," Mr Bradshaw said.

"Today's terrible news was delivered with only 30 minutes warning to us before ministers briefed the press, leaving us unable to inform our members.

"There has been no consultation, no communication; there has been a total lack of the 'partnership and co-design' Defra loves to talk about. It is another example of the growing disregard for agriculture within the department."

The government has said "every penny" in all existing SFI agreements will be paid to farmers, and outstanding eligible applications that have been submitted will also be taken forward.

It said details of a new SFI scheme will be announced following the Spending Review.

Read more:
What's the beef with farmers' inheritance tax?
Reed apologises to farmers for tax 'shock'

But speaking in the House of Commons on Wednesday, shadow environment secretary Victoria Atkins accused the government of having "sneaked this announcement out", and argued that the "popular" scheme is one that "works for farmers, the environment, and food production".

The Tory MP for Louth and Horncastle said the decision to halt the scheme "actively harms nature, it actively harms the environment - and with war once again raging in Europe, to actively harm our food production is reckless beyond belief".

She said of the government's entire farming policy: "They will halt any farming and environmental scheme on which farmers rely without warning, without consultation, and using criteria they have never before defined. The state will seize their farmland at will through the compulsory purchase orders that were announced yesterday in the planning bill.

"And if families have managed to cling on to their farms despite all of this, then Labour will tax them for dying."

In response, minister for food security and rural affairs Daniel Zeichner said the SFI scheme was previously undersubscribed, and is now oversubscribed, telling MPs: "It's not a complicated thing to say that when the budget is spent, a responsible government responds to that."

"I am absolutely confident that we will be able to sort out the mess that we have inherited. But basically, if you set up schemes without proper budgetary controls, you end up in this kind of position. We have had to take the hard decision that the previous government ducked."

The minister added: "This is an opportunity to improve how we do that under a fair and just farming transition. A transition that supports farms to be profitable businesses in their own right, through fairer supply chains, better regulation, and greater market access, and that directs public funding in a fair and orderly way towards the priorities we have set out on food, farming, and nature."

? Listen to Sky News Daily on your podcast app ?

'Absolutely bonkers'

But Olly Harrison, an arable farmer on Merseyside who organised the latest farming protest in London earlier this month, said the decision showed farmers were being "attacked from every single angle".

"It's just absolutely bonkers. The scheme worked. It was to replace what we had when we were in Europe [the EU] and a lot of farms embraced it, they were doing real good with it."

"Why have we got people who don't understand and don't understand the environment in power?"

Edward Morello, the Liberal Democrat MP for West Dorset, told Sky News the decision will "alarm farmers across the UK" - and called for the government to "start listening and responding" to the agricultural community.

Tim Farron, the MP for Westmorland and Lonsdale, said the decision was made with "no warning", while Conservative shadow farming minister Robbie Moore said the change was "absolutely scandalous".

Their concerns were echoed by Alastair Carmichael, chair of parliament's Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Select Committee EFRA Committee, who said the decision was "very regrettable".

"The abrupt halting of new applications to SFI will leave many farmers with no prospect of support to replace direct payments," he said.

"At a time when the government has deeply fractured its relationship with farmers, this decision on SFI only compounds the impression that the government either does not have a grasp of the realities that farmers face or is sanguine with the possibility of farms up and down the country going out of business, their land being sold off to other entities and British farmland being lost to farming altogether."

(c) Sky News 2025: 'Shattering blow' to farmers over pause to environmental payment scheme