Organic farming body says government move to halt SFI applications threatens domestic supply of sustainable food
The Soil Association has slammed Defra’s decision on Tuesday (11 March) to halt applications to the government Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) scheme, expressing particular concern for England’s organic and smaller producers.
In a statement today (12 March), the organic certification body said Defra’s unexpected announcement came just weeks after it had told farmers wanting to go organic to use options within the SFI to fund their land conversion.
Now these options have been frozen, with no assurances currently available for farmers wanting to convert to organic, the Soil Association said.
Defra’s halt to SFI applications follows new data just released by Soil Association Certification, which revealed that land in conversion doubled in 2024, alongside the 13th consecutive year of growth in the organic market, the group added.
Responding to Defra’s SFI decision, Soil Association chief executive Helen Browning said: “This damaging move by government seriously risks the viability of the organic sector and threatens the supply of sustainable British food. It has frozen farmers out of the opportunity to meet the rising demand for organic food, which will instead continue to be met by imports.
“The government is disregarding what shoppers and farmers want, alongside the need to protect nature. This is a new low for sustainable food production in England, which will fall even further behind Scotland and other countries where there are targets to increase organic production.”
She added: “We are also very worried that smaller producers and family farms, particularly fruit and veg growers, have not had enough opportunity to access the scheme and that they will be most impacted by this sudden change.”
In the wake of this announcement, Browning said the Soil Association is asking Defra that: payments for organic conversion and maintenance to be retained; farmers who started but had not yet finished their SFI applications have those honoured; priority be given to smaller producers – who need them most; and that payments for agroforestry, which had only just become available, be retained.
