Why the SFI26 May Be a Bigger Opportunity Than Farmers Think

Geoff Burke
7 days ago
3 min read

The 2026 updates to the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI26) announced at this year's NFU conference represent a major reset for the scheme. SFI agreements will now be capped at £100,000 per farm, the number of actions reduced from 102 to 71, and shortened to three years.

In this piece Soil Association Exchange’s Director of Farming Services Geoff Burke highlights some of the opportunities that the scheme offers to farmers.

You will no doubt have read many articles/blogs/comments etc. debating or discussing the merits of the recent SFI announcement. “This should have been in or retained”, or “this payment should be more" or "Why did they not do that”.

This is not one of those articles. Instead, I’d like to focus on the scheme as it stands. SFI26 brings us a scheme that is less about compensation, and more about enabling long-term farm resilience, profitability, and strategic advantage.

No guarantee of certainty

The abrupt closure of the SFI scheme in March last year made it all too clear that we can’t get too comfortable in the assumption that public support will always be readily available.

With the recalibrated SFI, farmers are provided an opportunity to capture payments for actions that deliver production advantage, farm profitability growth and asset value enhancement.

Amongst the themes covered are Agroforestry, boundary features, buffer strips, farmland wildlife, IPM, nutrient management, precision farming and soil health.

Actions the strengthen your farm business

In an environment of volatile input prices, tightening regulation, and increasingly unpredictable weather, SFI payments effectively subsidise risk reduction, yet many farmers are in danger of treating SFI as a replacement for lost income.

In the 2026 updates to SFI, I see actions that reduce operating cost, enhance system resilience, reduce exposure to external input price inflation, enhance animal well-being and overall productive performance, and facilitate optimal production system results/health. Some actions under the SFI even reward farmers in England for things that in other countries would be required by regulation to implement, at your own cost.

What an opportunity, particularly at a time when many of these practices would be underinvested in, or avoided altogether due to short-term cash pressure.

If you can capture the value offered, which should be straight forward (and I really encourage you to get your application in), ally that with your informed total farm strategy, you are in a strong position to optimise your bottom line.

If you are able to combine this with external knowledge input, paid for by your supply chain partner and even monetise some of your environmental performance, then you will find yourself in a truly enviable position.

My advice? Enjoy it, and apply. Experience has shown us this window may not remain open.

Here’s a glance at some of the key options within SFI26:

Good options to get livestock in the arable rotation and add value by leasing grazing whilst also improving soil health:

CSAM3 Herbal ley
CSAM2 - Winter cover crop
SOH3 Summer cover crop (only graze if terminating)

Plenty of options are available to help with on farm diversity and de-risking trials such as  companion cropping or reducing insecticide use. There are also plenty of options for habitat creation and for supporting good pasture management.

CIPM3 Companion cropping
CIPM4 No insecticide use
Multiple options for habitat creation, grassland and hedgerow management

Options to help de-risk nitrogen reduction through looking to implement legumes into the rotation

CNUM2 - Legumes on grassland
CNUM3 - Legume fallow

There are also some good options for diversification into agroforestry as well as adding another enterprise onto the farm. And great to see support for Organic conversion in there for those that want it.