The National Sheep Association (NSA) has hit out at Defra after the latest application window for the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) closed less than seven hours after opening, leaving uncertainty for thousands of farmers seeking support.
The second application window for SFI 2026 opened on Tuesday, September 22, with £233 million available to eligible farmers and land managers in England. However, the budget was fully allocated by 3.48pm the same day, bringing applications to an abrupt halt.
The development has sparked concern across the farming sector, particularly among businesses hoping to secure continuity of support as existing agreements come to an end this autumn and winter.
NSA chief executive Phil Stocker described the situation as "unacceptable" and warned it could leave many farmers facing major financial uncertainty.
“I am highly concerned by this situation,” he said.
“It may well be dressed up as a sign of the success of and demand for SFI, but it is yet another smash-and-grab raid which will exclude many farmers and deny them the continuity their businesses need.
“We simply cannot expect farmers to live with this level of uncertainty when they are running businesses built on long-term decisions.”
Mr Stocker said it remains unclear how many applications will be accepted and how many farmers will miss out on support.
“We have no idea yet how many applications will be accepted, or how many farmers will be left out,” he said.
“Those left out will have no opportunity to carry on with much of the environmental work already in place on their farms, and they will be left with a huge gap in their budgets which will be nigh on impossible to fill.”
The sheep sector body said it had invested significant time in working with Defra on scheme development and expressed frustration at what it sees as inadequate funding and poor budgetary control.
“NSA put a significant amount of effort into supporting Defra with scheme design, and I am devastated by the mess England now finds itself in through inadequate funding and poor budgetary control,” said Mr Stocker.
“To have the nation's foundation farming and environmental scheme operate in this way is unacceptable.”
He argued that while SFI is primarily focused on rewarding environmental outcomes, farms require a stable income base and long-term certainty to remain viable.
“A scheme of this kind should not be competitive,” he said.
“There is a complete mismatch between Defra holding a fixed budget, which is gone once it is spent, and English farmers needing a base income foundation which allows sustainable farming to be delivered viably.”
Mr Stocker called on Government to provide additional funding rather than reallocating money from elsewhere within agricultural budgets.
“There is still a way for Government to rescue this situation, but it needs an urgent injection of additional funds, not another attempt to find money by moving existing budgets around,” he said.
“Government must wake up to the importance of farming and food production, and to the fact it needs support.”
He added that England's post-Brexit farm support system risked losing credibility at a time when food security is increasingly under the spotlight.
“England was said to be pioneering a world-leading new approach to agricultural support,” he said.
“It has become a laughingstock; at the very moment we are waking up to the fragility and importance of food security.”
NSA said it will continue discussions with Defra and the Rural Payments Agency to establish how many sheep farming businesses have been left without an agreement and what support may be available before the next planned SFI offer in 2027.
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