Emergency podcast: Defra restricts land going into flagship green scheme

In this emergency podcast, we get to grips with Defra's announcement placing restrictions on land going into the Sustainable Farming Incentive.

Under the changes, SFI applicants will only be able to put 25% of their land into six SFI actions that take land out of direct food production.

The announcement was made by Defra on Monday 25 March 2024 – and applies to new applications to the flagship agri-environment scheme.

Joining podcast host Johann Tasker to make sense of the Defra announcement and what the restrictions mean for farmers are:

• Farmers Weekly arable correspondent Louise Impey
• Agronomist Andrew Wells of the Arable Alliance and Association of Independent Crop Consultants
• Farm business consultant and independent agronomist George Catchpole of Ceres Rural

The full Defra announcement can be seen here.

Do catch up with our regular Farmers Weekly Podcast every Friday with Johann Tasker and Scottish farmer Sandy Kirkpatrick,

To contact Johann and Sandy, email podcast@fwi.co.uk. In the UK, you can also text the word FARM followed by your message to 88 44 0.