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type: Answer
type: WrittenAnswer
answer has question: m7v9fMr0
answer has answering person: YWnDvo84
answer text: Farming in England is going through the biggest change in a generation. We have listened to the needs of farmers and our approach to working with the farming sector is also changing. We are improving our policies and services to make them more effective, fair, flexible, accessible, and workable for farmers. Environmental land management is the foundation of our new approach. Our new schemes will pay for sustainable farming practices (such as reducing carbon emissions, creating, and preserving habitat, and making landscape-scale environmental changes) and improvements to animal health and welfare. This is an important step towards achieving important environmental outcomes such as net zero, climate change adaptation, biodiversity, and water quality. In late June 2022, we launched the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI). SFI pays farmers for actions that support food production and can help improve farm productivity and resilience, whilst also protecting and improving the environment. The SFI scheme contains standards that can support a regenerative approach and are designed so that there are options available for all types of farmers. The standards include: • hedgerows standard • integrated pest management standard • nutrient management standard • arable and horticultural land standard • improved grassland standard • low input grassland standard We are rolling out the SFI2023 in a controlled way, making sure we offer everyone the right level of support. We invited Basic Payment Scheme eligible farmers to register interest for SFI2023 with the Rural Payments Agency from 30 August 2023. Over 14,000 farmers have done so, representing one in six. This process is already being simplified, with the majority of farmers no longer needing to registrations of interest as of the week commencing 16 October 2023. We started to accept applications from 18 September, and I am pleased to confirm the first payments were made on 17 October 2023. The Landscape Recovery scheme also supp…
answer given date: 2023-10-25+01:00
answer has answering body: 5LQ5Ar74
written answer has answering body: 5LQ5Ar74