Nature-friendly farmers in England share their experiences after a frantic scramble to secure funding.

The latest funding window for the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) in England turned into a race against time for farmers, with the entire £253m budget being allocated in just six hours.

Unsurprisingly, this has generated a lot of comment and debate, with calls for a major review of how nature-friendly farming in England is supported and funded.

Here, some of the NFFN farmers caught up in the scramble explain what it was like for them and share their ideas on how the system could be improved.

Dave Oates - Rosuick Farm, Cornwall

“Nobody knew what time the window would open, so I was up early checking online and waiting for someone in my farmer groups to text when it went live. Once it opened, it was all over in a flash. The whole experience was very stressful.

“While the application itself is simple and the process is good, there were a lot of bugs in the system.  It often crashed or showed error messages that didn’t say what the problem was. I’d check land use codes, find nothing wrong, sign out, sign back in and carry on. I had to do this several times, which was very frustrating and wasted valuable time.

“Some of the organic options wouldn’t work on certain parcels of land, and for some parcels I couldn’t select herbal leys or add agroforestry. Overall, the agreement I’ve got is close enough, even though it isn’t exactly what I wanted.  I’m certainly better off than many farmers who didn’t manage to get an application in at all.

“Creating a time-pressured rush, with too little money in the budget, is short-sighted. This situation needs addressing. It cannot be repeated. It would be a lot better if you could build your application ahead of the window opening, so when it does open all you have to do is press submit. If Defra could see in advance what people are about to apply for, that might also help with the budget issues.”

Anna Biesty - Deepdale Farm, Norfolk

“I’ve been through applications before and would describe myself as computer literate, but I still found the process difficult and stressful. I think training sessions on the application process would be very helpful. Lots of farmers were looking at this system for the first time, there was no way to get a preview, and none of the information I saw from the government really explained to farmers what they needed to do to make the process of applying as simple as possible. It just said: ‘be prepared’.

“I was only going for arable options, mainly rotational ones, with up to seven different options in one field parcel, including organic land management. I got in 98% of what we had planned, and feel very fortunate. However, I had to leave one field out of our application because the RPA maps work to two decimal points and the land use listings and SFI applications work to four. This is highly frustrating as it is surely the sort of thing that could be easily fixed.

“I’m now hoping the application can be worked through and the agreement offered in a timeframe that allows us to get the first bits planted up. The bulk of our cropped plots will be drilled regardless, but the margins are dependent on the SFI scheme. If we’re not successful, we will need to increase the cropping area. We’re also waiting for confirmation on our capital grant application, submitted in the first hour and a half of the window opening two months ago, which leaves me unsure whether I should order hedge plants or not.”

Ana Reynolds  - Manor Farm, Northamptonshire

“This whole process brought so much stress that our industry just didn’t need right now. The system was full of issues and bugs and if you so much as blinked or stopped to look at any of them, the window was closed.

“We managed to get our application in by mid-afternoon, and the Rural Payments Agency (RPA) was a lot quicker at calling back to help than I had expected from the comments about long phone waits. They couldn’t necessarily fix everything there and then, but they did advise us what to do.

“I am worried about the impact and consequences of this funding round. There will now be a lot of farmers who did not manage to submit an application at all. I am also worried that a lot of applications were compromised due to system errors and the time pressure to get something in - it takes a long time and a lot of thought to design a scheme that delivers for the environment and works for the farm, and this will have been undone for many being forced to make changes on the fly. There is going to be a lot of patching up and fixing of rushed applications to be done now, assuming that is even a viable option.”

Jon Thornes - South Ormsby Estate, Lincolnshire

“We’ve missed out on support in this SFI window because our application was still in progress when the scheme closed due to the entire budget being allocated. I am concerned that some people I have spoken to about this seem to think the money we were hoping to claim would go into my pocket. This is a concerning misunderstanding which entirely misses what we were planning to do.

“We were expecting to spend around £150,000 carrying out measures such as winter bird feeding, growing crops for wildlife, converting more land to organic production, creating beetle banks and widening field margins.

“Without the SFI support, some of this work will have to be scaled back or delayed. The loss is more than a payment to a farm business. It means less habitat for biodiversity, fewer insects and fewer birds. It is the flora and fauna that will suffer.”

David Lord - Earls Hall Farm, Essex

“This whole situation has been very badly handled. I’m hearing a lot of frustration and stress among farmers. In the end everyone was just rushing through their applications, desperate to get something in before all the money ran out. A lot of mistakes will have inevitably been made, and I would imagine post-application issues will take months to sort out.

“I had to submit our application without all the options I required because it was obvious that the money was going to run out. The system told us we were ineligible for some of the options due to existing agreements, which confused me as I was certain that I was applying for options that should have been stackable.

“This whole situation has left us with no funding for our buffer strips or for our provision of wild bird food over winter.”

Gillian Herbert - Hareley Farm, Herefordshire

“As far as I’m concerned, SFI26 has been a car crash. I applied in Window 1 as my SFI23 agreement was due to expire, only to be told my application couldn’t be submitted. I was then invited to be part of the beta test for Window 2, but encountered more technical problems, with the system also mixing up the two applications. I was then invited to apply afresh for Window 2,  only to log on and find that the window had closed as all the money was allocated.

“I cannot begin to express how frustrating and time-consuming this whole process has been. I’m sure lots of farms must have missed out, especially if they are smaller ones and had to interrupt their application to treat a limping ewe or mend a leaky water trough. By the time they were able to get back to the computer screen, it would have been all over.

“We only received a small amount of money from the Government, but it allowed us to continue doing what we do and farm this land as it has always been farmed. We’ve got ancient meadows, small-leaved lime trees, a flock of pedigree native-breed sheep and a long list of wildlife: all things that we’re told are meant to be supported. However, this situation has really left me wondering why I bother and questioning if it is worth it."