Accredited official statistics

Chapter 10: Public payments

Updated 22 July 2024

Summary

Key results for 2023 compared to 2022:

• Total direct payments to farmers are expected to decrease by £16 million (-0.6%) to £2,953 million.
• Basic Payment Scheme (BPS) payments are expected to decrease by £292 million (-12%) to £2,050 million.
• Payments linked to agri-environment schemes are expected to increase by £298 million (81%) to £666 million.

Introduction

This chapter shows the value of agricultural support payments in the United Kingdom. Agricultural support will vary as older schemes close and new schemes are introduced, therefore care should be taken when comparing between UK countries and years.

In 2021, agricultural support payments began to change following the UK’s departure from the EU Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).

Payments made to UK farmers under the Basic Payment Scheme (BPS) before 2021 were set in Euros and converted to Sterling using the exchange rate set by the European Central Bank for the month of September as a whole. From 2021 onward all BPS payments are funded by the UK exchequer and includes young farmer and redistributive payments.

Existing schemes under rural development programmes will continue to be co-funded from the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD) until 2024 or until remaining funds are depleted, whichever is sooner.

Payments previously made under the CAP will gradually be replaced by payments from the devolved governments. Agricultural domestic support will be administered through new schemes introduced in each country, and will generally be targeted at improving agri-environmental performance.

Direct Payments

Tables 10.1 and 10.2 below show the direct payments made to agricultural producers that are captured in the agricultural accounts (see Chapter 4) and exclude capital grants.

Values shown for a particular year refer to schemes operating in that year and are shown in current price, i.e. not adjusted for inflation, and are expressed as amounts expected to be paid.

Table 10.1: Direct payments to farmers 2021 to 2023 (£ million)

Enquiries: Alexandra Hall on +44 (0)20 7714 1374
Email: farmaccounts@defra.gov.uk

	2021	2022	2023
Decoupled and other payments
Basic payment scheme	2,825	2,342	2,050
Agri-environment schemes	362	368	666
Less favoured areas support schemes	31	117	62
Animal disease compensation	28	68	45
Other	13	25	83
Total decoupled and other payments	3,259	2,921	2,905
Coupled payments (linked to production)
Total coupled payments less levies	48	48	48
Total direct payments less levies	3,307	2,969	2,953

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Table 10.2: Direct payments to farmers by country 2023 (£ million)

Enquiries: Alexandra Hall on +44 (0)20 7714 1374
Email: farmaccounts@defra.gov.uk

	England	Wales	Scotland	Northern Ireland
Decoupled and other payments
Basic payment scheme	1,084	240	425	300
Agri environment schemes	553	75	33	5
Less favoured areas support schemes	[x]	[x]	[x]	[x]
Animal disease compensation	19	6	1	19
Other	64	1	18	[x]
Coupled payments	[x]	[x]	47	0
Total direct payments less levies	1,720	322	586	324

Notes for Table 10.1 and Table 10.2

1. Decoupled payments are not linked to production and include the Basic Payment Scheme and agri-environment schemes. Coupled payments are linked to production.

2. Other payments in 2023 include the New Entrants scheme operated in Scotland, and COVID-19 support schemes in Northern Ireland.

3. Coupled payment schemes in 2023 include the Scottish Suckler Beef Support Scheme, the Scottish Upland Sheep Scheme and the Northern Ireland Protein Crops Scheme. Total payments under the Protein Crops Scheme were less than £0.5 million and so are not shown for Northern Ireland in Table 10.2.

4. Agri-environment schemes in 2023 include the Countryside Stewardship Scheme (England), the Sustainable Farming Incentive (England), Glastir (Wales), the Agri-Environment Climate Scheme (Scotland), and the Environmental Farming Scheme.

5. [x] means data is not available.

6. Please note there may be small differences between the ‘Subsidies not linked to production’ in Table 4.1 and ‘Decoupled and other payments’ in Table 10.1 and Table 10.2 due to the inclusion of one-off payments in the latter.

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Take-up of agri-environment schemes

Agri-environment schemes provide an incentive to farmers to adopt land management and farm practices that are beneficial to the environment. The uptake of agri-environment schemes is shown by the total number of agri-environment agreements in place and the total area of land under these agreements. Due to the differing requirements of schemes, care should be taken when making comparisons. Fluctuations in areas and numbers occur as old schemes expire and new schemes begin.

Figure 10.1 Area under agri-environment schemes by country for 2021 to 2023 (thousand hectares)

Enquiries: Katie Killick
Email: FCPstatsandreporting@defra.gov.uk

Year	England	Wales	Scotland	Northern Ireland	UK
2021	3,035	647	1,179	61	4,922
2022	3,565	554	870	63	5,052
2023	4,487	481	842	62	5,872

Notes:

1. These numbers are based on the total area per land parcel for each option. Options may not cover the total area of the land parcel.
2. For England (pre-2023), Wales, Scotland and N. Ireland, the total area covered by agri-environment schemes is presented as a sum of the individual scheme areas. This may include a small amount of double counting as different schemes can cover the same land areas. From 2023 onwards the English total is based on a new methodology that removes any overlap, so the total area for England will be smaller than the sum of the individual scheme areas.

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Figure 10.2 Number of agri-environment agreements by country for 2021 to 2023

Enquiries: Katie Killick
Email: FCPstatsandreporting@defra.gov.uk

Year	England	Wales	Scotland	Northern Ireland	UK
2021	28,800	3,000	4,200	5,500	41,500
2022	34,500	2,800	3,400	5,000	45,700
2023	50,900	2,800	3,400	4,800	61,900

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Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) payments

Figure 10.3 shows all Pillar 2 Common Agricultural Policy payments for 2018 to 2023. Pillar 2 funds rural development programmes and schemes are co-funded by the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD) until 2024, or until funds are depleted. Data is presented by European Union agricultural financial years and shown in Euros.

CAP-funded Pillar 1 payments ended in 2021 and legacy schemes have switched to UK funding. Pillar 1 payments include direct payments and market measures. CAP Pillar 1 payments prior to 2021 can be viewed in the full dataset.

Figure 10.3: UK Pillar 2 Common Agricultural Policy payments for 2018 to 2023 (EUR million)

Enquiries: Michael Redfern on +44 (0)207 764 2327
Email: michael.redfern@ukcoordinatingbody.gov.uk

Year	EAFRD	Co-financing	Total
2018	581	179	760
2019	776	225	1,001
2020	766	227	993
2021	638	189	827
2022	476	170	646
2023	251	90	341

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General Services Support

Table 10.3 shows the annual cost of general services funded by UK Government and Devolved Administrations to support the agricultural industry. These are services that benefit the sector as a whole, and do not include payments to individual producers.

Table 10.3: General services support for 2021 to 2023 (£ million)

Enquiries: Alexandra Hall on +44 (0)20 7714 1374
Email: farmaccounts@defra.gov.uk

	2021	2022	2023
Agricultural research	262	259	306
Pest and disease control	3	21	21
Training services	3	2	1
Extension and advisory services	75	30	29
Inspection services	199	288	293
Marketing and promotions services	42	43	66
Infrastructural services	43	36	40

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Revisions

Figures for 2023 are provisional and subject to revision.

As a result of more data becoming available over time there have been minor revisions to earlier years in this release. These revisions are intended to enhance the precision of these estimates. Sometimes additional revisions are necessary to refine the methodology or correct historical errors, such revisions will always be noted.

Below are a list of key revisions that have been carried out since the last publication:

• Table 10.1 and 10.2 - Figures for direct payments to farmers have been updated for 2022 as calendar year data is available for 2022 onwards. Prior to 2022 the data are based on Q4 to Q3 years.

• Figure 10.2 - In the accompanying dataset, the 2018 Glastir Organic figure has been revised due to a previous rounding error.