Contact

Enquires on this publication to: FCPstatisticsandreporting@defra.gov.uk

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Responsible Statistician: Katie Killick

The dataset associated with this statistical release can be found here

Key messages

• The total area covered by Environmental Stewardship, Countryside Stewardship and Sustainable Farming Incentive scheme agreements in England at 31st December 2024 is estimated to be around 5.6 million hectares.
• This is equivalent to 64% of the utilised agricultural area of England.
• There is some uncertainty over the total area, due to overlap between schemes and actions, and the way that records are kept. Maximum and minimum possible areas have therefore also been estimated.

Area under agri-environment schemes in England

Total combined area under agri-environment scheme agreements

The total area covered by Environmental Stewardship, Countryside Stewardship and Sustainable Farming Incentive scheme agreements in England at 31st December 2024 is estimated to be around 5.6 million hectares, with a possible range of 4.3 to 6.0 million hectares. This is equivalent to 60% of the utilised agricultural area of England (49%-70%).

The range of possible values is due in part to including or excluding different types of action, and in part to the different ways the data can be interpreted. The minimum value (4.3 million hectares) is calculated by excluding all SFI planning actions and assuming that all scheme actions have maximum overlap. The maximum value is (6 million hectares) calculated by assuming minimum action overlap and including the maximum possible area for Environmental Stewardship. These represent the limits of the possible range of area values. See the methodology section of this document for more details.

Figure 1: The land area of England, shown as a rectangle. The area under agri-environment schemes is shown in yellow, with lighter yellow for the minimum area and darker yellows for the additional area under other estimates. The middle estimate is shown by a red line. The total utilised agricultural area of England is shown in light green, and the total area of England is shown in dark green.

Source: Area under agri-environment schemes in England at 31st December 2024

Area under agreement by Region (ITL1)

The ITL1 area (region) with the greatest area of land under agreement is the South West, and region with the lowest area is the North East.

Figure 2: A map of England, showing Regions (ITL1 areas). The areas with the lowest number of agreements are shown in light green and the areas with the highest numbers are shown in dark green.

Sources: Area under agri-environment schemes in England at 31st December 2024, Eurostat Geographic Information System

However, the regions are different sizes, which has a big effect on the area of agri-environment scheme agreements in each region. If we look at the percentage of all land parcel area in each region that is under agreement, we see that the North East has the highest percentage of land parcel area covered by agri-environment scheme agreements.

Figure 3: A map of England, showing Regions (ITL1 areas). The areas with the lowest proportion of agreements to parcel area are shown in light green and the areas with the highest proportions are shown in dark green.

Sources: Area under agri-environment schemes in England at 31st December 2024, Eurostat Geographic Information System

The land parcel area is the total area of all land parcels registered with RPA in that region. This is roughly equivalent to the eligible area in each region and will include most agricultural land, as well as some other land such as woodland.

Table 1: Table showing the percentage of registered land parcel area in each ITL1 region that is under agri-environment scheme agreement

ITL1 Name	Parcel hectarage in AES
East	55%
East Midlands	58%
London	34%
North East	69%
North West	55%
South East	52%
South West	54%
West Midlands	48%
Yorkshire and the Humber	56%

Source: Area under agri-environment schemes in England at 31st December 2024

Area under agreement by Counties and groups of unitary authorities (ITL3)

When we look at areas on a smaller scale, we can see that the percentage of land parcels under agreement is fairly even across ITL3 regions. It tends to be lower in areas with a larger amount of built-up area. The ITL3 region with the highest proportion of land parcels under agreement is Northumberland, at 75%.

Figure 4: A map of England, showing Counties and groups of unitary authorities (ITL3 areas). The areas with the lowest proportion of agreements to parcel area are shown in light green and the areas with the highest proportions are shown in dark green.

Sources: Area under agri-environment schemes in England at 31st December 2024, Eurostat Geographic Information System

Where did removing planning actions make the most difference?

Planning actions are an important precursor to active land management, but when not paired with other actions, they do not involve active management of land. For this reason, we looked at the area under agreement with and without these kinds of actions. Removing planning actions (SAM1, IPM1, NUM1, MOR1, CSAM1, CIPM1, CNUM1 and CMOR1) decreased the total area under AES from 5.6 million hectares (middle estimate) to 4.3 million hectares (minimum estimate). Removing planning actions also decreased the area under AES management by 46% in the East, vs a 9% reduction in the North West. This could be due to the suitability of different actions to different areas, or due to the different distribution of farm types in each region.

Table 2: Table showing the area of land (hectarage) under agri-environment scheme agreement, with and without planning options, and the difference between these two areas, per ITL1 region.

ITL1 Name	Hectarage in AES	Hectarage in AES without planning actions	Difference	Percentage difference
East	803,000	435,000	368,000	46%
East Midlands (England)	712,000	496,000	216,000	30%
London	7,310	5,280	2,030	28%
North East (England)	456,000	409,000	46,400	10%
North West (England)	572,000	520,000	52,500	9%
South East (England)	656,000	503,000	153,000	23%
South West (England)	1,030,000	875,000	156,000	15%
West Midlands (England)	468,000	360,000	108,000	23%
Yorkshire and The Humber	684,000	512,000	172,000	25%

Source: Area under agri-environment schemes in England at 31st December 2024

Methodology

Introduction 

As this is an official statistic in development, we welcome feedback on the novel methods used in the development of this indicator. For example, feedback on whether this new statistic measures something users feel should be measured, and how well it does so. 

Official statistics in development are official statistics that are in the testing phase and not yet fully developed. Users should be aware that official statistics in development will potentially have a wider degree of uncertainty. The limitations of the statistics will be clearly explained within the release. They may be new or existing statistics, and will be tested with users, in line with the standards of trustworthiness, quality, and value in the Code of Practice for Statistics. 

To give feedback, email the production team at FCPstatisticsandreporting@defra.gov.uk.

Background

These statistics describe the area of land that is being managed under agri-environment schemes (Countryside Stewardship, Environmental Stewardship and the Sustainable Farming Incentive).  

To produce these statistics, we have calculated the area of each land parcel that is covered by agri-environment scheme options/actions. Agri-environment scheme options and actions are activities that a land manager carries out on an area of land in return for payment, as part of an agri-environment scheme agreement. These include things like buffer strips between cultivated land and wildlife habitats (such as hedges or rivers), sowing crops to provide birds with food during the winter, or adding organic matter to soils.  

In the Sustainable Farming Incentive scheme (SFI), these activities are known as actions but are very similar to options. In this document, we will refer to both “options” and “actions” as “actions”. 

Most actions are measured in hectares, but some actions are measured using other quantities, such as metres (for example, hedgerows and boundary actions) or tonnes (for example, winter bird seed). Actions that aren’t measured in hectares were excluded from the calculations.  

Information about the quantities of different actions in different schemes can be found here. 

A full list of Countryside Stewardship actions can be found here.  

A land parcel is an area of land that is surrounded by a permanent boundary and has an area of 0.01 hectares or more. 

Land parcels are often equivalent to fields. The Rural Payments Agency (RPA) keeps a record of land parcels in England using the Rural Land Register.

The action datasets are  created from RPA databases. These datasets contain a land parcel identifier, the name of the action, the size of the area covered by the action, an agreement identifier code, and the start and end dates of the action. The dataset includes the information about which parcel an action is on, but not where on the parcel the action is located. This means that if there are multiple actions on a parcel, we don’t always know if those actions are located in the same place or in different parts of the parcel. The information about the exact location of the action is not collected on the application form – applicants only need to supply information about the size of the action area and the parcel they will locate it on.  

Previous estimates of the area of land under agri-environment schemes have counted the total area of all land parcels with actions located on them. This can cause an overestimation of the area under active management, as if there is only one action that covers a small area of the parcel (for example, a hedgerow action that only covers areas at the edge of the parcel), the total area of the parcel would be used. This new method has been developed to show the area actively managed, but the total parcel area is also reported for comparison and continuity.  

Land parcels and action areas 

Figure 4: A land parcel and some actions, represented as green squares of different sizes. 

A land parcel has a certain amount of area. Actions that take place on that land parcel also have an amount of area. Scheme participants can do multiple actions on a land parcel, and we don’t always know if the action areas overlap or not.  

As well as overlapping within schemes, actions from different schemes can also overlap– the same piece of land can be managed under different schemes, provided the actions are not the same. For example, a scheme participant could do action SAM1 from SFI23 (Assess soil, produce a soil management plan and test soil organic matter) and option AB8 from Countryside Stewardship (Flower-rich margins and plots) on the same piece of land, as these actions are quite different and locating them on the same piece of land is allowed under scheme rules.  

As we don’t know whether actions on a parcel overlap, we have computed a maximum and a minimum total action area per parcel.  

Minimum area 

To calculate the estimate of the minimum area, we use the area of the largest action on a parcel. For this method, we assume that all actions occur in the same area of the parcel – they are stacked on top of each other.  

Figure 5: Minimum area. Calculating the combined area of actions on a parcel by assuming all actions overlap completely. The combined action area, outlined in red, would be the area used in this approach. 

Calculation of the minimum area also excludes actions that are solely planning-based. This is because some data users might not consider them to involve active management of land. The following actions were excluded:  

SFI23 planning actions 

• SAM1: Assess soil, produce a soil management plan and test soil organic matter 

• MOR1: Assess moorland and produce a written record 

• IPM1: Assess integrated pest management and produce a plan 

• NUM1: Assess nutrient management and produce a review report 

• SFI Expanded offer planning actions 

• CSAM1: Assess soil, produce a soil management plan and test soil organic matter 

• CMOR1: Assess moorland and produce a written record 

• CIPM1: Assess integrated pest management and produce a plan 

• CNUM1: Assess nutrient management and produce a review report 

Middle area estimate 

To calculate the middle area estimate, we sum all the action areas on a parcel. If this area is larger than the parcel area, we use the total parcel area as our area – we assume that the actions cover the whole parcel.  

Figure 6: Middle and maximum estimates. Calculating the combined area of actions on a parcel by assuming that actions do not overlap. This gives a larger combined action area. 

The middle estimate also includes all planning options. 

All parcel areas are then summed to give the middle estimate and minimum possible areas.  

Maximum area estimate 

We know that some ES data is missing or incomplete due to the way that records of rotational actions have been kept.  This means that the area under ES that we have calculated for the middle estimate is likely to be an underestimation. Because of this, we have created maximum area estimate, which is the upper limit of area covered by agri-environment schemes.  

In order to calculate this upper bound, the area under ES was modified. We subtracted the area under ES that was calculated for the middle estimate, which gave us the area covered by CS and SFI. We then combined the area under CS and SFI with the total area of all land parcels linked to businesses with ES agreements (this information was supplied by RPA). This gave us the maximum area estimate. This creates an upper limit because the area covered by ES cannot be larger than the area covered by all businesses with ES agreements. 

Area of all parcels managed under agri-environment schemes 

The area of all parcels with any agri-environment scheme action on them is also reported for comparison with previous publications, such as Agriculture in the UK. This method uses the whole parcel area regardless of the size of the action area on the parcel. This method has the advantage of being straightforward, easily reproducible and accounting for any overlap between actions, but has the disadvantage of potentially over-representing the actively managed area under schemes.  

Determining ITL area 

In this dataset, area under agri-environment schemes is presented at ITL3 (International Territorial Level 3 - Counties and groups of unitary authorities). This is determined using geospatial parcel data, which tells us which ITL3 area the parcel is in, as well as the proportion of the parcel in that area. A small number of parcels cross ITL area borders.  When this happens, we have multiplied the action land area by the proportion of the parcel in each ITL area to determine the land area of the action per ITL area. 

Our previous approach used the postcode linked to the agreement. However, the postcode of the agreement does not always correspond to the location where actions are being performed. For example, the postcode approach might tells us that there are 50 hectares under CS in East London, but using geospatial parcel data tells us that there are no hectares being managed under CS in this area.  

The geospatial approach appears to give us a more accurate picture of where actions are located. However, it is not 100% accurate, as when a parcel crosses a region border we do not know which region the action is being carried out in. For example, if a 10-hectare parcel with 1 hectare of AB8 from CS (Flower-rich margins and plots) on it has 50% of its area in Worcestershire and 50% of its area in Shropshire, we don’t know if the action is being carried out in Worcestershire, Shropshire, or both. In this analysis, we have assumed that actions are split according to the amount of the parcel in each area.  This only has a very small effect on the results due to the low number of parcels where this is the case. 

Any land area assigned to parcels outside of England (i.e., in Scotland and Wales) has been removed from the results as these are due to cross-border parcels and the actions can be carried out anywhere on the parcel.  

Official statistics in development designation  

Our statistical practice is regulated by the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR). OSR sets the standards of trustworthiness, quality and value in the Code of Practice for Statistics that all producers of official statistics should adhere to. You can read about how Official Statistics in Defra comply with these standards on the Defra Statistics website. 

This publication is an official statistic in development. Official statistics in development are official statistics that are undergoing a development; they may be new or existing statistics, and will be tested with users, in line with the standards of trustworthiness, quality, and value in the Code of Practice for Statistics. 

Details of how we plan to develop these statistics are laid out in the Development Plan. We particularly welcome feedback from users on the methodology and presentation of the statistics set out in this release, and our future plans for development. For example, feedback on whether this new indicator measures something users feel should be measured, and how well it does so. 

Method for creating the statistics 

As the areas of the actions and parcels were known, but not the location of the actions on the parcels, an upper and lower estimate of area was created.  

The following actions and actions were excluded from the calculations: 

• All actions/actions that were not measured in hectares. 

• All Capital items, as these do not represent active management of land. 

Countryside Stewardship: 

• SP10: Administration of group managed agreements supplement 

• PA3: Woodland management plan 

These were excluded from the data as they have area but are not attached to parcels, so it was not possible to determine whether they overlapped with other actions. 

SFI23 and SFI Expanded offer: 

• MPA1: SFI Management payment 

• MPAY1: SFI Expanded offer Management payment 

Excluded as it is a payment made for entering land into the scheme. It is capped at 50 hectares. It is intended to cover administrative costs and therefore isn’t a payment for active land management. 

The minimum estimate of land area covered by AES excluded the SFI23 planning actions SAM1, MOR1, IPM1 and NUM1, and the SFI Expanded offer actions CSAM1, CMOR1, CIPM1 and CNUM1. This is because they are planning actions, so some data users might not consider them to involve active management of land. The area associated with these actions is frequently covered by other actions, but not always. Giving a range of estimates means that this data can be used for different purposes when needed.  

The data only included agreements that were active on the specified date. 

The reference parcel data was used to give the total parcel area for each parcel.  

Minimum area was determined by taking the largest action area. Maximum area was determined by summing the actions. If the sum of the actions exceeded the parcel area, the parcel area was used as the area (area was capped at the size of the parcel). If the parcel area was not known, the largest action area was used instead to prevent overestimation. 

The datasets for the different schemes were combined. For the middle and maximum estimates, the total area of all actions on a parcel was computed, and capped at the area of the parcel. This was summed to get the middle estimate of the total area. The largest action area for each parcel was also summed over the whole dataset to get the estimate of the minimum area. 

An upper bound on the total area is created by using the maximum possible area for Environmental Stewardship, which is the area of all land parcels linked to businesses with an ES agreement. The upper bound is created by subtracting the larger estimate of scheme area created using parcel data for ES from the maximum possible area for ES, and then adding the number to the larger estimate for total scheme area. This gives the maximum area under AES. 

The total parcel area for all parcels covered by agri-environment scheme actions was calculated by taking the total parcel area for any parcel with an agri-environment scheme action on it (excluding those that are not measured in hectares), regardless of the size of the action area. This is reported for comparison with previous publications, such as [Agriculture in the United Kingdom] (https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/agriculture-in-the-united-kingdom-2023), which previously used this method.  

Geographical data (grouped by ITL3) was produced by joining the parcel-level datasets to a dataset of parcel identifiers with ITL3 areas. The proportion of the parcel in each ITL3 area was also included in the dataset. The action area per parcel was multiplied by the proportion of the parcel in that ITL3 area to give the total. For example, if a parcel had 1ha of actions on it and 75% of the parcel was in Durham, this would assign 0.75ha of AES area to Durham. The areas per ITL3 were summed to give the total and are presented rounded to 3 significant figures. The dataset showing area per ITL3 was produced using the middle area estimate- i.e. assuming that actions are not 100% stacked.  

Total parcel area is calculated by summing the area of all parcels in each ITL3 area, using the RPA dataset of all currently recorded land parcels. This reflects the available agricultural area within each ITL3 area, much of which will be eligible for inclusion in agri-environment schemes. The total parcel area also includes some non-agricultural land, such as woodland. 

The area of land under agri-environment schemes is also presented as a proportion of the total utilised agricultural area (UAA) of England. The figure used for total UAA of England was 8.7 million hectares, as reported by Defra in 2024 . 

Caveats, limitations, and uncertainties 

There is significant uncertainty around the area covered by Environmental Stewardship. This is an older scheme which was open to applications from 2005 to 2015. Some of the data recorded for this scheme was collected on paper forms and has never been converted to an electronic format. This means that we are unable to access information about which parcels are linked to rotational actions, which then means that we cannot determine where actions overlap. For this reason, rotational actions have been completely excluded from the area calculations. This is in line with previously published estimates, but does represent a significant source of uncertainty. We are unable to accurately report the area under Environmental Stewardship, so have provided estimates of the minimum and maximum area covered by agri-environment schemes in England.  

Countryside Stewardship has rotational options. The information used in this analysis was the information relating to parcel and option extent at the beginning of the agreement. This information can change over time, so the location and extent of rotational option areas will not always have been correct.

Some parcel areas were not known. When this is the case, we have not been able to cap the area at the parcel area so have used the largest option area instead. This means that the area covered could be slightly higher than calculated. However, the effect is likely to be small and the total area is unlikely to be larger than the maximum estimate.  

Linear actions have been excluded from the calculations for CS and SFI. Some of these, such as hedgerows, do occupy some area. However, these actions are reported separately as the exact area is not determined.  

Using geospatial data to determine parcel location is an improvement on using agreement postcode. The data used was last updated in October 2024. Parcel data does change over time, although the rate of change in this dataset has slowed since BPS (Basic Payment System) de-linking as much of the parcel updating was linked to BPS agreements. There is a risk that this data is becoming less accurate over time. The effect of this would be that more parcels would not have an assigned ITL area. In this case, we would need to change the approach to determining ITL area. 

Using geospatial data to determine parcel location is not 100% accurate as when a parcel has area in two ITL areas, we do not know which area the actions are being performed in. However, the effect on the results due to this is very small, due to the low number of parcels where this is the case.  

A small amount of area was attributed Scotland and Wales. This is most likely due to cross-border land parcels and the uncertainty about the location of actions on parcels, and is unlikely to represent genuine activity in Scotland and Wales. These results were removed from the final dataset. 

Development Plan 

As an official statistic in development, we intend to continue to improve the datasets and methodology used in the analyses as well as the outputs produced. The development of the statistics will be guided by feedback from users, while we also plan to address the areas listed below. 

Developments planned for the next statistical release to be published in 2025: 

Rotational options/actions are activities that are carried out on different areas of land each year.   

We will explore where there are compatible and incompatible actions on parcels. Compatible actions can be located on the same area of land, but incompatible actions must be located on different areas of land. Knowing that actions cannot be located on the same area of land will mean that we can account for this in our lower estimate, by removing the assumption that these actions are co-located. 

A better estimate of the area covered by ES will be developed by looking at the area covered by compatible and incompatible rotational actions. 

User feedback to be collected on the usefulness of the statistics, including statistics with and without SAM1 and MOR1 and the useability of the estimates. 

We will check that the method used for determining ITL area is not causing too much data loss due to parcels not having an assigned area. If the loss of parcels goes above a certain threshold (to be determined), we will change the approach. 

Acknowledgements 

Thank you to our colleagues in RPA and Defra who have provided the data and information necessary to develop these statistics. 

Technical Appendix 

Datasets 

This section describes the datasets that were used in the analyses. 

Reference parcels dataset, provided by RPA Geospatial Team. Dataset of all current parcel IDs and their area (in hectares). October 2024 

ES parcel-level data, provided by RPA Data and Analysis Team. Dataset of all options in ES agreements, which parcel they are on, the area of the option on each parcel, plus details of which agreements these relate to and the area of each parcel. 

CS parcel-level data, provided by Defra Digital, Data and Technology Team from RPA data systems. Dataset of all options in CS agreements, which parcel they are on, the area of the option on each parcel, plus details of which agreements these relate to. 

SFI23 parcel-level data, provided by Defra Digital, Data and Technology Team from RPA data systems. Dataset of all actions in SFI23 agreements, which parcel they are on, the area of the action on each parcel, plus details of which agreements these relate to. 

SFI24 extended offer parcel-level data, provided by Defra Digital, Data and Technology Team from RPA data systems. Dataset of all actions in SFI24/Enhanced Offer agreements, which parcel they are on, the area of the action on each parcel, plus details of which agreements these relate to.