Menu

Farmers face uneven support as stewardship payments begin

Philip Case 12 December 2025
>More in
©Tim Scrivener©Tim Scrivener

As the 2025 payment window for Countryside Stewardship and Environmental Stewardship opens, December is proving a financially challenging month for many farm businesses.

While the Rural Payments Agency (RPA) reports that more than three-quarters of eligible English farmers have already received payments, totalling £435.6m, the reality on the ground is more complex.

The RPA confirmed that 28,351 payments have been made to date, but 25% of eligible farmers have yet to receive funding, creating a system of “haves and have-nots”.

See also: Defra grants one-year CS lifeline for 5,000 farmers  

Neil Hornby, RPA chief executive, said: “We’ve made a strong start to the 2025 payment window and increased the number of payments made in the first few weeks compared with last year.”

While the schemes are designed to support sustainable food production and farm resilience, improving habitats, water quality, and carbon capture, many farmers report that these benefits do not immediately translate into financial stability.

With direct support payments drastically reduced, farm businesses in England no longer have the financial buffer they have relied on in previous Decembers.

For many, the maximum payment per individual business – capped at £7,200 – is nowhere near enough to cover pressing end-of-year bills, including feed, energy, and labour costs.

In addition, the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) remains closed to new applicants in England and is unlikely to reopen until late spring at the earliest, leaving smaller or newer entrants without access to this support.

NFU response

NFU deputy president David Exwood said he was enocuraged to see the RPA improving its performance and getting more payments processed and out to farmers and growers on time.
 
“This action provides crucial investment in our sector, following another challenging year of price volatility and high input costs, extreme weather and changes to inheritance tax, and ensures farmers can continue their vital work in producing food and caring for nature with improved financial stability,” he said.
 
Mr Exwood said the NFU will continue to push Defra for more clarity on the future of the SFI.
 
However, the Tenant Farmers Association (TFA) challenged Defra to raise its game further in 2026 to ensure timelier payments for farmers.
 
TFA chief executive George Dunn said: “This year has been a shambles with SFI closing at short notice, then reopening for a limited few, and Countryside Stewardship rollovers being confirmed late in the day – too late for a number of farmers who had already committed to cropping decisions.”
 
But Mr Dunn warned the omens for a turnaround in performance in 2026 were not looking good.
 
Defra has committed an average of more than £2.7bn per year to sustainable farming and nature recovery from 2026/27 to 2028/29.
 

Further cuts to direct payments

However, delinked payments (formerly BPS) face further, drastic cuts and will be capped at just £600 per farm for 2026 and 2027.
 
“It is worrying that Defra is now looking at fundamental changes to schemes and replacing the IT which underpins them. Those considerations will inevitably take a long time to complete,” Mr Dunn said.
 
“Defra might be proud to have secured what it believes to be the largest budget for sustainable food production in history, but it’s self-congratulation will ring hollow if it doesn’t get money out the door to hard-working farm families delivering both for food and nature.”

Explore more / Transition

This article forms part of Farmers Weekly’s Transition series, which looks at how farmers can make their businesses more financially and environmentally sustainable.

During the series we follow our group of 16 Transition Farmers through the challenges and opportunities as they seek to improve their farm businesses.

Transition is an independent editorial initiative supported by our UK-wide network of partners, who have made it possible to bring you this series.

Visit the Transition content hub to find out more.
See more