We have consistently and regularly engaged with farmers and stakeholders to listen to their concerns. The hon. Gentleman will be aware that in
January we announced increases in many of those sustainable farming incentive opportunities, because we listened to farmers telling us that some of those payments were not right and were not high enough. We listened and we increased those payments. We are constantly scanning and listening to the sector and working hand in hand with farmers to ensure that the schemes we devise and introduce are farmer friendly and are understood by the farming sector.
This year we have increased payment rates in our environmental land management schemes by an average of 10%, although some payments went up by significantly more. We have also doubled the management payment for the sustainable farming incentive, which is now worth £2,000 for the first year of an agreement. That will encourage even more smaller farms to join the scheme, on top of the many that have already done so.
From the summer we will launch up to 50 new actions that will allow farmers to access the scheme funding for things such as precision farming and, for the first time, agroforestry. The new actions give even more choice to farmers in what they can do, especially those on moorlands and grasslands. Nearly half of all farmers are now in one of our schemes. So far there have been almost 22,000 applications to the sustainable farming incentive under our 2023 offer, and there are now more than 35,000 live countryside stewardship agreements in place.
Farmers taking part in the sustainable farming incentive are typically more than making up their lost basic payments. The value per hectare of applications to date is £148. That, alongside delinked payments for small farms this year of equivalent to £117 per hectare, adds up to more than the value per hectare of the basic payment scheme before we started our reforms: £233 per hectare under the old basic payment scheme versus a total of £263 under delinked payments and the SFI.
Smaller farms potentially have access to more income than before. Under the basic payment scheme, half the money went to the 10% of largest farms. Under SFI, payments are based on the actions the farmers take rather than simply the amount of land they have. There are many credible ways in which SFI agreements can produce more income than the basic payment scheme for a typical farm.
The sustainable farming incentive can also help to deliver a reduction in costs and waste on farms to make them more resilient and improve food production—for example, by paying farmers to plant companion crops to help manage pests and nutrients, assessing and improving the health of farmers’ soil, and growing cover crops to protect the soil between main crops. This year we will make it even easier for famers to access funding by allowing them to apply, through one application process, for actions that were previously in countryside stewardship —particularly in mid-tier—and the sustainable farming incentive. That is part of our commitment to make it as easy as possible for those who want to apply.
We have also announced the largest ever grant offer for the agriculture sector, totalling £427 million. It includes a doubling of the investment in productivity and innovation in farming to £220 million this year. That will provide support for farmers to invest in automation and robotics, as well as in solar installations
to build on farm energy security. It also includes £116 million for slurry infrastructure grants and £91 million for grants to improve the health and welfare of our farm animals.