The Tenant Farmers Association (TFA) has welcomed a statement made today by DEFRA Minister Daniel Zeichner to the House of Commons that around 3000 individuals with in-flight 2024 Sustainable Farming Incentive applications in England, who were told on 11 March that they would be unable to progress their applications, will now have the opportunity to do so.

This represents around half of those applications on the RPA system that had been started but not submitted. DEFRA has said that anyone who started an application within the two months up to 11 March 2025 will now have the opportunity to take those applications forward subject to a ceiling on their payment of £9300 which is equivalent to the average payment being made to current SFI participants.

TFA Chief Executive, George Dunn, said "From day one the TFA has been arguing that those with in-flight SFI applications should have been given the opportunity to take them forward before the door to the scheme was closed. We have repeatedly made that call in representations to both Ministers and officials.

We therefore welcome the relaxation that has been announced by DEFRA, although we appreciate that it is not perfect and will not help everyone. There will be many who will have started an application longer ago than two months before 11 March, but who will have been adding to that application over time.

The TFA has therefore argued today that anyone who started or saved an application between 12 January and 11 March should have the ability to take that application through to submission. We are also aware that there will be a significant number of individuals within the cohort identified by DEFRA who will be unable to take forward an application because of decisions that they have made to change their cropping plans when they were no longer able to participate in the scheme.

The TFA has called on DEFRA to provide advice to those individuals about what they might be able to do in order to participate in the scheme this year rather than having to wait until a new scheme is launched for new applicants”.

"Accepting that this is not perfect the TFA does welcome the change of position from Minister Zeichner and is grateful that he has listened to our robust but constructive lobbying on this issue," said Mr Dunn.