Jonathan Marsden and Martin Lines - Everything you need to know about the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI)

The Sustainable Farming Incentive is now open for applications. Through SFI, farmers will be paid for looking after the natural environment while they're farming. This year, we’ll start paying farmers for taking care of their soil or assessing the condition of moorland. From next year, we’ll be expanding the range of SFI actions farmers can get paid for.

For episode 8 of the Future Farming Podcast, we brought together Cambridgeshire farmer Martin Lines and Defra Sustainable Farming Incentive lead Jonathan Marsden to talk about all things SFI and land management. Jonathan explains about the SFI funding that farmers can apply for now, and the new funding that will be available to farmers for environmental land management in the next few years. 

Find out how to apply for SFI.

Transcript

00:00:00:05 - 00:00:29:09 
Jonathan Marsden 
Hello and welcome everybody to the Future Farming podcast. My name is Jonathan Marsden and I work in Defra with Janet Hughes and a range of colleagues developing the new environmental land management schemes. My focus is SFI, the Sustainable Farming Incentive. I lead on the content of the scheme, so the standards and what we'll be asking farmers to do, managing their land, managing their habitats for the benefit of wider society. 
 
00:00:29:16 - 00:00:48:21 
Jonathan Marsden 
So I'm joined here today by Martin Lines, who farms in Cambridgeshire, and we're going to talk about SFI and ELM schemes, Martin's philosophy for farming and how that can help us interpret the Sustainable Farming Incentive and the wider package of ELM schemes. So, Martin, do you just want to say a few words, introduce yourself? 
 
00:00:49:01 - 00:01:09:07 
Martin Lines 
Yeah, hello. So I'm a predominantly arable farmer in Cambridgeshire. We farm 165 hectares at home, but we also do some contract farming and rent some additional land. And we've grown mainly combinable crops, but we're also looking at reintroducing livestock within our farming system and sort of heading towards the regenerative farming system. 
 
00:01:09:12 - 00:01:13:00 
Jonathan Marsden 
So what's led you to explore reintroducing livestock? 
 
00:01:13:04 - 00:01:35:04 
Martin Lines 
Because we created cover crops within our system, I can get them grazed by a new entrant who's building up his sheep flock, which then adds fertility into my soil, which is free, comes out the back of an animal, is building soil health up, and makes the soil more resistant. We're trying to close our nutrient loop. Last few years, we've greatly reduced our artificial fertiliser already,  
 
00:01:35:08 - 00:01:41:00 
Martin Lines 
and I'm trying to focus around the Net Zero journey of removing fossil fuel systems out of production. 
 
00:01:41:02 - 00:01:48:16 
Jonathan Marsden 
That's interesting stuff. And how's that integration gone? Have you seen an impact on yields? How’s it gone from your perspective? 
 
00:01:48:19 - 00:02:10:15 
Martin Lines 
A big, steep learning curve. We had livestock on the farm 20, 30 years ago, but never had sheep. We have to work with the shepherd because we're on heavy clay soil. So we have to be very careful grazing during the winter months, keep the sheep moving regularly. We haven't seen any great yield losses apart from where we've left the sheep too long in a field. We've seen a lot of benefits because it's reduced a lot of our input costs. 
 
00:02:10:16 - 00:02:14:05 
Martin Lines 
So for me, on the whole, it's been a real benefit.  
 
00:02:14:05 - 00:02:18:10 
Jonathan Marsden 
Could you go into a little bit of detail about those input costs where you've seen the savings? 
 
00:02:18:15 - 00:02:43:20 
Martin Lines 
Yeah, by changing our system and introducing the cover crops and now into zero till or min till in some places, we use a lot less herbicides. We're now using half the fungicides we were. And this year we've grown winter wheat and we haven't actually put any artificial fertiliser on at all. There's enough held within the crop, in the soil, from the build up of organic material and the legumes we've put within our cover crops. 
 
00:02:44:07 - 00:02:56:04 
Martin Lines 
So we scan the crops through tissue sampling and satellite imagery. And the science, the data is saying we don't need any inputs. So that's a real positive. That saves me an awful lot of money. 
 
00:02:56:15 - 00:02:58:04 
Jonathan Marsden 
But particularly this year. 
 
00:02:58:14 - 00:02:59:04 
Martin Lines 
Yes. 
 
00:02:59:04 - 00:03:08:11 
Jonathan Marsden 
Are there any big lessons to learn from that that would perhaps help other growers that are just starting this journey? Are there any particular pitfalls to avoid? 
 
00:03:08:14 - 00:03:26:16 
Martin Lines 
Most of us understand most of our soils and our individual fields, and many fields are in different places. So don't go rushing into it. But where you still have a field that has a bit of drainage problems or is a slightly different soil, they're the ones you need to take a little more care of, but you will have other fields that you can move forward. 
 
00:03:26:16 - 00:03:53:16 
Martin Lines 
And I really think it's that attention to detail and work with the livestock holder, if you own or bring in livestock from other people. I mean, my journey would be, we’ll put a herbal ley in this year and we're now planning to add cattle into the system so we can use those as a fertility builder and then where we cut some hay and some wildflower margins that we have to cut because we’re doing some stewardship, we can feed that product during the winter. 
 
00:03:53:24 - 00:04:01:22 
Jonathan Marsden 
Excellent. And it sounds to me awfully close to organic farming, but you've not described yourself as an organic farmer. 
 
00:04:01:23 - 00:04:26:07 
Martin Lines 
I'm definitely not an organic farmer. We still use pesticides, but a lot less. We haven't needed to use insecticides for, it’ll be 9 years this spring, because of what we recognise, the habitat we deliver on our farms, because I've just finished my HLS and ELS and I'm waiting to go into a new stewardship, that biodiversity area has helped with predating the insects, to eat my aphids, 
 
00:04:26:19 - 00:04:40:13 
Martin Lines 
it's increased pollinators. I've not needed to use insecticides, and it's that kind of journey for me, and I try and help other farmers to see that this joined up approach across the landscape use, for many, is really delivering productivity benefits. 
 
00:04:40:20 - 00:04:58:18 
Jonathan Marsden 
And I suppose that's just worth exploring a little bit. You use the word productivity, and you know this with everything that's happening around us, there's been a lot of focus on food production. It's often characterised that farmers either need to do food production or do the environment. You seem to be saying that we can do both at the same time. 
 
00:04:59:03 - 00:05:26:10 
Martin Lines 
Very much so, and both go very much hand-in-hand. The more I focus on improving soil health, the more resilient and better my crops grow with less inputs. The more I focus on delivering targeted, carefully managed pieces of environmental delivery in the right places across the farm, is adding benefits to yield production and predation, but also protecting where I farm against watercourses and other things. 
 
00:05:26:16 - 00:05:34:08 
Martin Lines 
So for me, it's having that hand-in-hand approach. I work with nature and nature works for me to make me more profitable. 
 
00:05:34:14 - 00:05:38:02 
Jonathan Marsden 
So how can Defra help? A bit of a loaded question. 
 
00:05:38:22 - 00:06:08:24 
Martin Lines 
That is just rather. I'm a farmer who's been doing stewardship schemes, probably 20 years. It's the transition into what's coming. Actually, there's quite a lot of information available on the Defra website around SFI, what's coming. But it's the integration and the further detail, come together and look at everything in a whole-farm system approach. Lots of things within SFI are individual actions, but how does that complement everything else that goes on on the farm? 
 
00:06:09:09 - 00:06:17:18 
Martin Lines 
So I'm always looking for that longer term plan of, how do I stitch things together? Because as a farmer I'm planning 5, 7, 10 years ahead. 
 
00:06:17:23 - 00:06:45:21 
Jonathan Marsden 
Yeah, we're very conscious within Defra of the role the Basic Payment Scheme, BPS, has played in the security of farm businesses. But we're in a new place. BPS is going to be phased out over the next 6 or 7 years. Those changes have already started taking place. We recognise that there's a need for us to be able to provide information that allows farm businesses to plan in the medium and long term. 
 
00:06:45:21 - 00:07:14:19 
Jonathan Marsden 
We need to be able to set out the trajectory here and we won't have all the numbers straight away because some of this stuff, we're still developing, but the first elements of that change are coming on stream in the form of the first bits of the Sustainable Farming Incentive. This year we're introducing 3 standards: arable and horticultural soils, improved grassland soils, and then a moorland assessment. It’s a rolling window application. 
 
00:07:14:19 - 00:07:36:16 
Jonathan Marsden 
It's open. There will be no closing date. You can apply as a farmer when it suits you, when it suits your business, when you've got the time. But what we've also published here, and this is addressing this need, Martin, for people like yourself to be able to plan, we've published what we call a roadmap in terms of the standards that we are looking to introduce over the coming years, 
 
00:07:36:16 - 00:08:07:22 
Jonathan Marsden 
add those into the Sustainable Farming Incentive. Next year, in 2023, the plan is we'll introduce additional standards looking at crop nutrition, nutrient management, integrated pest management, so what can we do to reduce the role of pesticides without impacting crop yield? And at the moment, we're looking to also introduce a hedgerow standard next year, all of which will have payments in addition to what we're offering with the soils. Then in the future, 2024, we’ll expand that offer again,  
 
00:08:07:22 - 00:08:35:22 
Jonathan Marsden 
looking at what we can do to protect watercourses and streams and rivers, what we can do for the big, complicated word is farmland ‘biodiversity’, I like to frame it more as the birds and the bees. And also stuff to do with our unimproved grasslands, they are vitally important and in the postwar intensification of agriculture, which was good, it fed the nation, but we lost so much of our species-rich grasslands, 
 
00:08:36:05 - 00:09:04:02 
Jonathan Marsden 
so we'll look to introduce something in 2024 into the scheme to help protect those and get them better managed. And we're also in 2024 looking to introduce an agroforestry standard which blends producing food with forest reproduction. In the past it's been a black or white or a binary decision, it's either farmland or it's woodland. Agroforestry allows us to do both, and we're just exploring all that at the moment. 
 
00:09:04:02 - 00:09:31:19 
Jonathan Marsden 
And then following on from that, after 2024, look to introduce an organic standard, do more with on-farm woodlands, specialist horticulture and orchards, and dry stonewalls walls and heritage. So that's the projected roadmap, if you like, for the Sustainable Farming Incentive, adding to all of that, bringing in elements of the Local Nature Recovery scheme, which will build on the best bits of Countryside Stewardship, 
 
00:09:32:09 - 00:09:57:12 
Jonathan Marsden 
and also the first applications for the Landscape Recovery scheme. All of that is trying to set out the trajectory for the support that will be available in the medium term to help farmers start that journey of planning and adjusting their businesses. Martin, do you want to ask me some questions about that? 
 
00:09:57:18 - 00:09:59:10 
Jonathan Marsden 
So really tease out the detail? 
 
00:09:59:18 - 00:10:24:00 
Martin Lines 
Yeah, so we've seen previous policy and I think it's taken many farmers, myself included, quite a journey to recognise it's a co-design. Many farmers are working with Defra to create this, and we haven't got the answers for a year or 2, but we have a roadmap and also BPS is being slowly reduced over the next 7 years and then more options are coming in. 
 
00:10:24:15 - 00:10:52:10 
Martin Lines 
And for me, as someone who's going into CS, hopefully going into Countryside Stewardship, it's that opportunity to slide into the Local Nature Recovery part of ELM. And how do I deliver my local targets? And then how do I stack the SFI and Local Nature Recovery and any other scheme I can get funding for? And it's just defining that, we can’t have double funding, but that layering system and hopefully the computer system we get to use can allow us to do that. 
 
00:10:52:18 - 00:11:24:13 
Jonathan Marsden 
And that's absolutely the ambition. So SFI, farmers like yourselves will be able to have your SFI agreements on the same pieces of land as your Countryside Stewardship agreements and in the future, your Local Nature Recovery agreements. We've developed the IT in such a way, clearly we can't pay for the same thing twice, we've developed the IT in such a way that if you've got a Countryside Stewardship option on a particular bit of your farm, that is essentially doing the same thing as what we would be asking for 
 
00:11:24:13 - 00:12:00:24 
Jonathan Marsden 
for SFI, the area of that option and the payment is removed automatically from your SFI application. So as you apply online, the system will do all the maths for you. So there's no risk of inadvertently claiming for the same thing twice. We've tried to make that as simple and as straightforward as possible. In terms of stacking with SFI on top of LNR agreements or LNR agreements on top of SFI, we are now developing the contents of those 2 schemes absolutely together. 
 
00:12:00:24 - 00:12:25:14 
Jonathan Marsden 
It's the same working groups, the same groups of farmers that are developing the SFI options, for example, moorland, and they're also developing the LNR options for moorland at the same time, so that we can absolutely make sure the 2 schemes fit together and nothing's falling between the cracks. But equally, we’re not inadvertently going to trip over each other. 
 
00:12:25:22 - 00:12:52:01 
Jonathan Marsden 
What we're really looking into now at the moment is, for the last few years we've described these schemes as separate schemes, here and now we've been talking about Sustainable Farming Incentive and Local Nature Recovery. This could all just be what we call a single service. In many ways, describing them as separate schemes is an artificial divide. As a farmer, you want to do good stuff for the environment and get rewarded for it. 
 
00:12:52:05 - 00:13:23:11 
Jonathan Marsden 
If you can just log on to a single place and look at what's available to you in that area that addresses your local priorities and that fits with how you want to farm, we needn’t describe that as 2 separate schemes. It could just be 1 single service, as we call it, that allows you quickly and simply to identify what's available to you in your area, on your farm, on your land, and apply quickly and simply to get funding for that, and get paid promptly every quarter. 
 
00:13:23:16 - 00:13:33:01 
Jonathan Marsden 
We're putting a lot of effort within Defra at the moment into seeing if we can make that single service approach work because there's benefits in a lot of places for that. 
 
00:13:33:05 - 00:13:51:09 
Martin Lines 
And me, as a farmer, maintaining the landscape and the environmental features has a cost to me, and if I can get some public support in delivering better quality and more of it, that's a huge benefit. And I think the way you've just described that, that sounds like me going through a shop with a basket, and picking up the items 
 
00:13:51:09 - 00:14:01:11 
Martin Lines 
I want, and popping them in my basket, and then checking out at the other end, which I think should be really welcomed by many farmers to help stack earning potential on those features you have on a farm. 
 
00:14:01:14 - 00:14:08:21 
Jonathan Marsden 
That's the intention. I don't think we’ll quite be on the same footing as Amazon with baskets and things. But the ambition is there. 
 
00:14:08:24 - 00:14:38:19 
Martin Lines 
I think for many farmers, we've been used to a single application for BPS, and for many, it's going to take a little while for particularly these SFI soil standards and grassland standards, to work out which action at what level to put in each individual field. And I think many farmers need to start preparing themselves now by getting hold of the information, sitting down and looking at their farm, and which one of the different actions at different levels they could label onto the field for the next year or 2. 
 
00:14:38:20 - 00:15:02:16 
Jonathan Marsden 
Yeah, I think you're absolutely right. And you touched on something really important there. Within SFI, there's different levels of payment. We refer to them as levels of ambition, and it's proved very valuable from the learning that we've got from the SFI pilot. Everybody's business and everybody as people, we're all in different places with this. You know, there are people like yourselves, Martin, you've been in stewardship, as you said, for 20 years. 
 
00:15:02:23 - 00:15:16:05 
Jonathan Marsden 
You're fairly familiar with a lot of the type of stuff that we are going to be paying for. You'll be able to come in at those higher levels of ambition because you've got confidence, you've got understanding. But not everybody's in that place. 
 
00:15:16:20 - 00:15:17:00 
Martin Lines 
No. 
 
00:15:17:05 - 00:15:36:12 
Jonathan Marsden 
And by having those different levels of payment, the introductory level and the intermediate at the moment for the soils, we're trying to find a place for everybody in the scheme. People can put their foot on the first rung of the ladder and if you find, well, actually this isn't too bad, and actually I had another look at the intermediate level, 
 
00:15:36:15 - 00:15:53:17 
Jonathan Marsden 
I think I probably could do something with cover crops. There's always an area of land that perhaps I'm a little bit late drilling for whatever reason, it doesn't perhaps yield just as well because, well actually, it might make a bit of sense to pop that land down to a cover crop, move it to spring cropping. And from our perspective, we're getting the soil protected over winter, 
 
00:15:53:17 - 00:16:17:02 
Jonathan Marsden 
and if there's additional money in intermediate level of the arable soil standard for growing those cover crops, there's an extra income stream there for the farmer. If people over time look at that and think, oh, actually I can make that work, then there'll be the ability within SFI to change your agreement on an annual basis so that, if you've gone in at the introductory level and you find you're getting on alright with it, you'll be able to move up to the intermediate level. 
 
00:16:17:10 - 00:16:37:16 
Jonathan Marsden 
So we're trying to be flexible around this and give people the opportunity, not a sort of top-down, perhaps as we have been in the past with the EU rules, this is how you must manage your land. This is about us putting a framework in place that rewards people for sustainable farming, and the more sustainable, the higher the payment. 
 
00:16:37:24 - 00:17:03:03 
Jonathan Marsden 
It's as straightforward as that. We farm at home and I am all too aware of the financial pressures many farmers are under. And actually those financial pressures, they can drive short term decision making that often isn't in the best interests of the environment. And what we're trying to do with SFI is position it so that the marketplace will be driving that short term decision making. 
 
00:17:03:11 - 00:17:25:19 
Jonathan Marsden 
So the marketplace might drive growing of continuous cereals, but in the longer term we know that's not good for the environment, and that's where SFI can step in. There’s a market failure there, and we can support, for example, the growing of cover crops to improve soil health because we know that stuff takes time and that's why the marketplace fails. 
 
00:17:26:00 - 00:17:35:05 
Jonathan Marsden 
If SFI can provide that incentive, then we can start addressing these long term declines in farmland biodiversity, soil health, etc. 
 
00:17:35:10 - 00:17:55:09 
Martin Lines 
As you said, many farmers are in very different places along a changing journey, and it’s the ability to take that first step, and some may take strides over the next year or 2. Hopefully as an industry, as farmers, we can work together with each other and support each other, because there's nothing better than going on a farm visit and looking round 
 
00:17:55:09 - 00:18:08:01 
Martin Lines 
somebody else’s and learning, but also seeing what other people are up too. So I think there's a real opportunity going forward of the whole of the agricultural industry and supply chain to get behind some of this and help farmers go on that journey. 
 
00:18:08:04 - 00:18:50:00 
Jonathan Marsden 
Absolutely. And I'm so glad you’ve brought that up, because I mentioned this isn't about Defra telling farmers how to manage their land. That's not what this is about. And that's perhaps how it has been in the past. We want a partnership with farmers. We want a partnership with the industry. We want to work together so that we can produce a really vibrant agricultural industry that's at the leading edge of lots of innovation, a really vibrant agriculture industry that's delivering step changes in the natural environment and sustainability, and a really vibrant industry that is financially viable and responding to what the marketplace wants 
 
00:18:50:00 - 00:19:14:08 
Jonathan Marsden 
in terms of food production. This is about a partnership and we're offering heaps and heaps of flexibility about how to implement our soil standards. There’s guidance there, we're putting an awful lot of trust in farmers in terms of, you know what's best for your land, your farm. It's up to you how you increase the level of organic matter on your arable soils, for example. 
 
00:19:14:08 - 00:19:32:21 
Martin Lines 
A lot of that is welcomed, as many farmers are always a little bit hesitant how we interpret these options to be delivered. But we're going to have to wait and see, and hopefully it rolls out smoothly, which I am sure it will. But where we do have teething problems, because there will always be in things that are new, that we can all work together. 
 
00:19:32:21 - 00:19:42:19 
Martin Lines 
We've got change coming, we're moving away from the BPS, we've got to get this moving so farmers start that journey, and hopefully there's a good take up to get this rolled out. 
 
00:19:43:03 - 00:20:14:10 
Jonathan Marsden 
Absolutely. And we've got ambitions regarding uptake, but we know it's early days and we know not everybody's going to come charging in straightaway. We're realistic about that. But the best thing that we can do in terms of encouraging uptake is to have a simple, straightforward application process that works. The money starts flowing quickly when it should. We're doing as much work as we can to make sure that those payments flow quickly, promptly. As I mentioned, SFI is going to be paid quarterly, you won't need to submit a claim every quarter, 
 
00:20:14:10 - 00:20:34:21 
Jonathan Marsden 
the money will just be paid. There will, at the end of each year, be an annual declaration that you just need to sign to confirm you've done what you should. But we're trying to make this as burdensome less, if that's the real word, as possible for everybody involved. Those types of forms, they don't just create paperwork at the farm desk, they also create paperwork for RPA, 
 
00:20:35:11 - 00:20:38:07 
Jonathan Marsden 
and if we can minimise it for everybody, everybody's a winner. 
 
00:20:38:08 - 00:20:56:01 
Martin Lines 
Good to hear. As farmers, most of us, the least amount of time we have to fill in paperwork, the better, we obviously need to do some. And the connectivity of many farmers in rural locations is challenging, so the least amount we have to go to a local library or go to somebody else's house to log in, that's also a benefit. 
 
00:20:56:10 - 00:21:01:02 
Jonathan Marsden 
Yeah, simplicity is key for everybody involved in this. 
 
00:21:01:08 - 00:21:18:14 
Martin Lines 
I welcome the direction. Implementation is the next step. And I sit here reading, I've got your website open, I'm reading the standards that are currently published. I can see a lot of opportunity in what we can deliver, and that's talking as a farmer who’s already been doing some of that, but I also can relate that to farmers who haven't done any at all. 
 
00:21:18:21 - 00:21:26:07 
Martin Lines 
And most of those actions make good farming practice. So it’s things we should be doing and we can do over the next couple of years. 
 
00:21:26:07 - 00:21:51:10 
Jonathan Marsden 
Good. That's good news. You've touched on co-design and that's a nice buzzy word, and let's just explain what that means in a little bit more detail. In developing the content for the schemes, the standards themselves and the Local Nature Recovery options, we're working with, at the moment, I think about 150 farmers are involved in various working groups helping us develop the standards and the LNR options. We've been doing, for quite a few years now, 
 
00:21:51:10 - 00:22:14:19 
Jonathan Marsden 
tests and trials with groups of farmers that are looking at various aspects of scheme design. I think about 3 and a half thousand farmers have been involved in tests and trials up to date, and we've got the SFI pilot that we opened up last year with just short of a thousand people managing their land, they've got SFI agreements, they've got access to 8 standards at the moment. 
 
00:22:15:06 - 00:22:46:05 
Jonathan Marsden 
Those include the soil standards, but there's some other stuff that we're testing at the moment, and we're learning an awful lot from those pilot farmers. They're very good at telling us where we're not getting it right, and that's incredibly valuable to us. So those of you that have been following the developments of the soil standards, if you look at the soil standards in the pilot, and compare them to what we're now pushing out into the live service for everybody, they’re significantly more straightforward. 
 
00:22:46:13 - 00:23:14:02 
Jonathan Marsden 
It's very clear now, we've managed to crystallise the soil standards down to the key things that are important that farmers do, and we've also tried to bring some clarity around what is an introductory level of ambition and what's in the intermediate. So again, simplicity, clarity. We got an awful lot of feedback regarding the guidance and everything that we produce regarding the pilot and the standards. 
 
00:23:14:13 - 00:23:34:17 
Jonathan Marsden 
It was quite complicated to follow and we've learnt an awful lot from that, and that's a far more straightforward process now. So it's clear, if you're looking for advice on a particular action, this is where it is, and that guidance tells you exactly what it is you need to know. So we've learnt a tremendous amount from the pilot. 
 
00:23:34:17 - 00:24:00:09 
Martin Lines 
I think most farmers welcome that opportunity to be at the beginning of that making and building it, because we've all had experience before where we've entered into schemes that have obviously not been written by somebody who's practical trying to deliver those options, and I think that change of direction hopefully will really help farmers understand what they can do and simply navigate the system to get the best they can for themselves out of it. 
 
00:24:00:15 - 00:24:01:21 
Jonathan Marsden 
Yeah, absolutely. 
 
00:24:02:05 - 00:24:17:04 
Martin Lines 
How do we stack? How are we going to differentiate between what's going to be funded privately and what's publicly funded? If I'm a farmer who's being paid by a water company to do a cover crop, can that be stacked or has that got to be declared separately? 
 
00:24:17:11 - 00:24:44:19 
Jonathan Marsden 
OK. Now it's a really, really good question, and we know a lot of these private schemes are becoming ever more popular. The position we're in at the moment is, from an SFI perspective, if there is private investments coming in, that's fine by us. So we're not going to ask people to take land out of SFI if you're getting funding through a carbon credit scheme or anything like that. 
 
00:24:45:00 - 00:25:10:20 
Jonathan Marsden 
And we've adopted that position because it's early days with the whole private finance thing. It’s evolving, what we would refer to as an immature market. There's lots of different ideas coming out and there's a danger here that if we force farmers to choose between our schemes and those private schemes, we could stifle the market. We’re just at that point on the innovation curve where there's loads and loads of different ideas coming out, 
 
00:25:10:23 - 00:25:34:11 
Jonathan Marsden 
we want that to evolve. So at the moment for SFI, if you're being paid by a carbon credit scheme to do something with soil, that's great, it won't affect your SFI agreement. You will need to check with whatever private scheme you're looking to engage with, because they may have got some of their own rules, so there's a check that you as a farmer would need to do there. As we move forward into the future, 
 
00:25:34:11 - 00:25:59:09 
Jonathan Marsden 
and I don't know how far into the future because as I say this is evolving territory, if there's a marketplace develops, for example, that rewards farmers that have got high levels of organic matter in their soil for carbon reasons, and that market has stabilised and is mature, then that removes the need for Defra to step into that place like we are doing at the moment 
 
00:25:59:12 - 00:26:16:02 
Jonathan Marsden 
through the soil standards, where we're encouraging people to apply organic matter to their soil. The marketplace is starting to address that environmental concern. So there's no rationale then for Defra to intervene in it. But we can't say when that will be because we don't know how these markets are going to evolve. 
 
00:26:16:02 - 00:26:31:18 
Martin Lines 
The other thing that may be interesting for people, those farmers who currently don't receive BPS but could do actions to improve soil and hedgerows, when will it be their opportunity to join and get access to the ELM public money for public goods? 
 
00:26:32:00 - 00:26:54:17 
Jonathan Marsden 
You're quite right, at the moment the eligibility for the scheme is limited to those who are eligible for BPS, and there's some pragmatic reasons why we've gone down that route just in terms of making sure we can stand up a service without burdening the RPA with lots of new registrations. But you're absolutely right to highlight that that’s a short term position, it’s for pragmatic reasons, 
 
00:26:54:17 - 00:27:15:17 
Jonathan Marsden 
and we are looking to move away from that. Currently, we've pencilled in to open up the eligibility requirements around 2024, particularly for those farms that are less than 5 hectares, which is the current BPS rule. I've mentioned a date there, it’s not confirmed. There’s heaps of work we need to do just in terms of understanding the demand that might create on the system. 
 
00:27:15:17 - 00:27:21:08 
Jonathan Marsden 
But it is the intention to open this up to all land managers when the time is right. 
 
00:27:21:15 - 00:27:42:05 
Martin Lines 
It's right because there are many farmers who haven't had access to BPS, being a smaller unit or being a horticulturist, or something that hasn't been claimable in the past. And the ability for them to have a level playing field so they can get the same kind of reward for delivering a public good as their neighbour who's traditionally had public support, 
 
00:27:42:06 - 00:27:53:14 
Martin Lines 
I think that's an important step that we level the playing field to everybody who farms, manages that landscape, can equally get support in delivering the public goods that society wants delivered. 
 
00:27:53:14 - 00:27:55:20 
Jonathan Marsden 
I completely agree. Completely agree. 
 
00:27:56:03 - 00:28:06:09 
Martin Lines 
We understand ELM is going to be 3 pots. What kind of relationship will each one of those pots do and what are the main outcomes of those 3 areas within ELM? 
 
00:28:06:14 - 00:28:28:04 
Jonathan Marsden 
Yeah, so the 3 pots, the 3 schemes that we're working on at the moment are the Sustainable Farming Incentive, SFI. We've got Local Nature Recovery, and then we've got Landscape Recovery. And I suppose if I just explain a little bit about why those schemes are different. So Sustainable Farming Incentive, first of all, is aimed at agricultural and horticultural land, 
 
00:28:28:08 - 00:28:52:15 
Jonathan Marsden 
so land that is growing food. We're looking for wide scale uptake. We've set ourselves an ambition ultimately, by the time we get to 2027, 2028, around 70% of land being in SFI. We're looking to address environmental issues, our 25 Year Environment Plan targets and our Net Zero obligations. With activity in SFI, it doesn't need to be targeted, 
 
00:28:52:15 - 00:29:13:05 
Jonathan Marsden 
any farmer anywhere in the country, you can do this and you will make a positive difference. And because it's such wide scale uptake, it's got to be relatively straightforward. We haven't got a massive team of advisors that can go out there and support all of this. It's going to have to be the commercial advisory sector that supports it. So it's got to be simple stuff 
 
00:29:13:05 - 00:29:35:00 
Jonathan Marsden 
that's easy to understand and easy to implement. That's SFI. Local Nature Recovery is more targeted. In different areas of the country, there are different environmental targets, different environmental needs that we need to address. So LNR will pick up where there is stuff that needs to happen in particular areas of the country, in a particular way. So it’ll be targeted. 
 
00:29:35:01 - 00:29:58:23 
Jonathan Marsden 
Also, it's likely to be perhaps where we're recreating a species-rich grassland or rewetting a moorland, that type of stuff where there’s going to need to be a lot of advice and support needed to make sure that we get the right outcomes and farmers are capable and able to implement this and they feel supported in doing so. 
 
00:29:58:24 - 00:30:27:19 
Jonathan Marsden 
And that's really the remit of the Local Nature Recovery scheme, those more targeted, bigger interventions. And then finally there’s Landscape Recovery. This is slightly different. What I've described so far is fairly familiar to those of you, particularly yourself Martin, if you’ve been in the schemes for 20 years. Landscape Recovery is different. This is where we're looking at really quite big changes across quite big areas. 
 
00:30:28:00 - 00:30:54:00 
Jonathan Marsden 
So this won't be a scheme in the way we've described and are used to, this is going to be more, I suppose, like projects, where a group of farmers in an area will come together or a very large estate or perhaps a utility company, if they're managing moorland and things like that, groups of farmers, groups of partners will come together at a significant scale to deliver a really big change to that environment. 
 
00:30:54:11 - 00:30:57:18 
Jonathan Marsden 
That's how the 3 schemes are positioned. 
 
00:30:57:23 - 00:31:09:20 
Martin Lines 
So we currently, through BPS, have our cross-compliance. Will the SFI standards be running alongside that and will we still need to be delivering our cross-compliance obligations? 
 
00:31:10:00 - 00:31:29:11 
Jonathan Marsden 
If you're claiming BPS, you'll need to honour your cross-compliance obligations. The SFI standards will build on top of what's been asked for as part of cross-compliance. As we go forward, as BPS reduces, then there becomes a question mark in the future regarding the role of cross-compliance. But we're not there yet. [The plan is for cross-compliance to end in 2024].
 
00:31:29:21 - 00:31:49:20 
Martin Lines 
When we look at these individual SFI actions on their own, the values within them are not that large. Am I correct in understanding that as we have more BPS taken away, we'll have more SFI standards coming with different rates in, so we can stack them to make a larger pot that actually compliments our farming systems. 
 
00:31:50:01 - 00:32:07:23 
Jonathan Marsden 
That's exactly the philosophy, Martin. So yeah, people have looked at SFI payment rates for the soils, you know the £20-£40 a hectare mark, and say, well, you know, it's not worth me getting out of bed for, but that's just the beginning. And we talked earlier, didn't we, about the additional standards that we're looking to bring in in the future, 
 
00:32:08:03 - 00:32:33:17 
Jonathan Marsden 
they will bring with them additional payments. I suppose one way of looking at this is that SFI is a sort of modular scheme and you can choose which standards you go into. As BPS payments are reduced, more SFI standards become available, and the money that's available through SFI will grow as we add additional standards into the scheme. In the past we've often framed this argument so it's either environment or food,  
 
00:32:33:17 - 00:32:46:21 
Jonathan Marsden 
as a farmer, I suppose it's a question to you, you look at what we're asking you to do in the soil standards, does that inhibit you in producing food or will that help you in the future in producing food? 
 
00:32:47:01 - 00:33:05:16 
Martin Lines 
For me, when I look at these standards, it helps me build resilience into my soil. Many of those actions I'm already currently doing, they are as I see best practice, and why wouldn't I not want to keep my soil covered during the winter to stop my soil being lost? So it's actually encouraging farmers to make sure they're doing it, get it in place, 
 
00:33:06:00 - 00:33:14:19 
Martin Lines 
and actually we’ll see a long term benefit in our food production now, but also in the future. And that resilience will build within our businesses. 
 
00:33:14:22 - 00:33:23:04 
Jonathan Marsden 
Good. That's SFI, the philosophy is working with farmers to grow businesses, grow the environmental positives that come out of farming. 
 
00:33:23:10 - 00:33:34:02 
Martin Lines 
So enforcement, I've heard it come across that the role will be to help identify where there's small failures and give you the opportunity to improve, some areas that may be a bit more critical. 
 
00:33:34:04 - 00:33:57:06 
Jonathan Marsden 
There are lots of farmers out there that are trying, they’re doing their best. They might fall slightly the wrong side of a line. And it's those farmers in the past where the EU rule gates opened and all hellfire and damnation has descended, and that just makes people disgruntled. As we go forward, those people that are just falling the wrong side of the line, 
 
00:33:57:11 - 00:34:26:10 
Jonathan Marsden 
what people need in that scenario is help and support. They need the opportunity to put it right, not get a big fine. And that's absolutely the approach that we're looking to take with enforcement as we go forward. There are the wrongdoers. There are those that deliberately go out to defraud. But for those people that are genuinely trying and they just need encouragement and support, that will come, and we’ll give people the opportunity to put right wrongs before we start reclaiming money and things. 
 
00:34:26:19 - 00:34:37:06 
Jonathan Marsden 
Well, Martin, thank you for your time this afternoon. We've had a really, really useful chat and it's been wonderful to talk to you, and I hope you've found it a useful conversation as well. 
 
00:34:37:08 - 00:34:39:01 
Martin Lines 
Yes, thank you very much for the opportunity. 
 
00:34:39:01 - 00:34:48:04 
Jonathan Marsden 
And thank you to our listeners. We’ll wrap up this edition of the Future Farming podcast. We look forward to your company again on future editions. Thank you very much for listening. 
 
00:34:48:09 - 00:34:52:10 
Martin Lines 
Jonathan, if you ever come our way, do come and pay a visit. I'd love to show you round.  
 
00:34:52:11 - 00:34:57:21 
Jonathan Marsden 
Brilliant. Thank you very much, Martin.