A government decision to pause a sustainable farming funding scheme is presenting \u201cmajor challenges\u201d for South Yorkshire farmers, a charity has warned. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) , which began in 2022, benefits farmers across the country by providing grants for efforts that tackle the climate crisis.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, last week the Government paused the scheme and will not be accepting any new applications until spring 2026 – leaving a year-long funding gap.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This has left farmers frustrated with the Government’s decision and without essential funding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Chief executive of Sheffield and Rotherham Wildlife Trust,\u00a0 Liz Ballard said: \u201cWe are deeply disappointed by the UK Government\u2019s decision to pause the Sustainable Farming Incentive.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThis move presents major challenges for the farming community in our area.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
National charity The Wildlife Trusts’ said the government’s decision came without warning and that without this essential funding nature friendly farming is not accessible.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to gov.uk, the SFI\u202fpays farmers and land managers \u201cto take up or maintain sustainable farming and land management practices that: protect and benefit the environment, support food production, improve productivity\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But with the incentive now on hiatus, there are now no Environmental Land Management schemes open to farmers and landowners leaving no definitive route to sustainable farming. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Barnaby Coupe, Senior Land Use Manager at the Wildlife Trusts said: \u201cThe Government’s decision to pause all applications for the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) has pulled the rug from beneath the feet of farmers who are trying to farm more sustainably.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Government said the initiative had resulted in more than 37,000 multi-year live agreements – and that \u201cevery penny\u201d of all existing SFI agreements will be paid to farmers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Minister for Food Security and Rural Affairs Daniel Zeichner said:\u202f\u201dThis Government is proud to have set the biggest budget for sustainable food produce in history, to boost growth in rural communities and all across the UK, under our Plan for Change. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cMore farmers are now in schemes and more money is being spent through them than ever before. That is true today and will remain true tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A government decision to pause a sustainable farming funding scheme is presenting \u201cmajor challenges\u201d for South Yorkshire farmers, a charity has warned. The Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) , which began in 2022, benefits farmers across the country by providing grants for efforts that tackle the climate crisis.\u00a0 However, last week the Government paused the scheme […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":155,"featured_media":54587,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7,5,165,1],"tags":[847,849,848,395],"class_list":["post-54579","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture","category-news","category-top-story-4","category-uncategorized","tag-southyorkshire","tag-farmer","tag-farming","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shef-live.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54579","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shef-live.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shef-live.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shef-live.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/155"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shef-live.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54579"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/shef-live.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54579\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":54606,"href":"https:\/\/shef-live.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54579\/revisions\/54606"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shef-live.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54587"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shef-live.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54579"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shef-live.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54579"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shef-live.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54579"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}