Deadline for Countryside Stewardship applications extended
The 2024 Countryside Stewardship Mid Tier agreement application deadline has been extended until the 15th September.
The application window for 2024 Countryside Stewardship Mid Tier agreements has been extended until Friday 15th September to allow more time for people to submit their applications online, following direct feedback from farmers.
Countryside Stewardship plays a significant role in the Government’s efforts to make food production more resilient whilst contributing towards the UK’s environmental goals, such as biodiversity and water quality. By extending the application window farmers can apply and be paid for environmental work alongside sustainable food production, from restoring wildlife habitats and managing woodlands, to mitigating flood risks.
The scheme is popular in the sector and has continually evolved following farmer feedback, with 32,000 agreements already successfully in place across England for 2023. This represents a 94% increase in uptake since 2020 – including nearly 26,000 Mid Tier agreements – and additional investment has been put into online systems to increase capacity. This has supported a further high level of interest this year.
There have been some technical issues which have been experienced by a small number of some applicants when submitting their applications. These have now been resolved. The Rural Payment Agency has been working closely with affected applicants and agents to support applications, with actions taken to resolve issues as quickly as possible and systems put in place to assist farmers through the process.
Further improvements to the online system are already in train, including greater flexibility over when farmers can apply and how they manage their agreements.
Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Thérèse Coffey said:
It is important that we listen to farmers who are key custodians of the countryside. Having met many farmers across the country this summer, and recognising the poor weather has made harvesting much more challenging, I think it right we extend the application window for Countryside Stewardship this year to make sure that those who want to apply for this scheme can – building on the great success we have had with this scheme to date.
Rural Payments Agency Chief Executive Paul Caldwell said:
It’s great that we’ve already had 3,900 applications successfully submitted. With this extension, we can make sure that others who have not fully submitted their application, or those who haven’t yet applied, have the time they need to do so.
I would encourage anyone who has not yet fully submitted an application to do so, and should anyone have any difficulties with amending their land details then we have guidance available on this and applicants can contact us if they encounter any issues.
Today’s announcement follows previous improvements and evolutions to Countryside Stewardship following farmer feedback, including:
- the removal of the limit on the value of capital items in the water or air quality, hedgerow and boundary, or natural flood management priorities;
- a broadened offer to support natural flood management, create more areas of scrub, and reduce nitrogen inputs in groundwater;
- the removal of the need for farmers to request an application pack before starting their application, automatic checks to enable applications to be processed quicker, and an annual declaration; and
- an average increase of 10% for revenue payment rates and 48% for capital payment rates, as announced in January.
Using feedback from farmers and other stakeholders Defra and RPA have already introduced measures to improve how the scheme works for farmers and delivers positive outcomes, including:
- simplifying the options and improving them to make them more workable on the ground
- increased payment rates on both revenue and capital items mean that farmers and land managers are being paid more;
- adjustments to the administration of the scheme with applications and payments to make it as efficient as possible; and
- improving our approach to checking progress, making it fairer and more proportionate.
Further improvements to the system are already in train, including greater flexibility over when they can apply and how they manage their agreements, with improved access for tenant farmers and increased access to Higher Tier options and agreements; and the introduction of Countryside Stewardship Plus to encourage the right things being done in the right places, enable local join-up to deliver bigger and better results and facilitate testing of innovative payment mechanisms, such as payment by results.