The Animal Health and Welfare Pathway supports improvements in farm animal health and welfare. The first step of the pathway is the Annual Health and Welfare Review. Starting this autumn, farmers who keep cattle, sheep and pigs can get funding to pay for a vet or vet-led team to visit their farm and carry out a yearly review. We're now ready to put more of the pathway to the test and we need your help.
When you look closely, moths are beautiful, diverse and fascinating in their colours, patterns, size and behaviour. There are around 2,500 species of moths in the British Isles. Many of these are fully or partly dependent on trees and woodland.
As we face the possibility of an insufficient supply of Oak for planting, find out how considering a more diverse mix of tree species can bring value to woodlands.
In June MMO colleagues visited 21 ports stretching from Kent to Cornwall to speak with commercial fishers about their experiences of fishing for non-quota species (NQS, also known as non-pressure stocks) - and their aspirations for future management of these ...
SMARTFISH H2020 is an international research project which aims to develop, test, and promote a suite of high-tech systems for the EU fishing sector. The goal is to optimise resource efficiency, improve automatic data collection for fish stock assessment, provide ...
Today's blog looks at Government action to tackle nutrient pollution.
The Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) is now open for applications via the Rural Payments service. Through the SFI, farmers will be paid for looking after the natural environment in the course of their farming. This initial offer will pay farmers for taking care of their soil or assessing the condition of moorland. In this post, we'll share more about the application process.
Bees are undeniably beautiful and fascinating insects, but what many people do not always realise is how vital they are for a healthy environment and healthy economy. The vast majority of our food and wildflowers rely on pollination, which bees ...
Today we're announcing more details about the new slurry storage grants that we will be launching later this year, as part of the Farming Investment Fund. This post gives extra context to the information published today on GOV.UK. We explain what the new grant offers, how to apply and what to look out for over the coming months.
Following publication of the Adding Value manual on 23 May, the online checker is now open for you to apply. This £30 million fund offers grants focused on supporting farmers and growers to process, diversify and add value to their eligible agricultural products after they are harvested or reared. It offers grants of between £25,000 and £300,000 for up to 40% of eligible project costs. 
Any farmer or land manager who receives BPS in England is eligible for free business advice during the early years of the agricultural transition. The current phase of support will close at the end of August. So far, 6,600 farmers have made use of this free advice. The final phase of support will open in October and will be scaled up.
It's been almost 2 weeks since we opened the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) for applications, so we thought now would be a good time to share an update on how it's going so far.
In this post, we'll share a summary of the second meeting of the UK Agriculture Partnership (UKAP). It was held at the College of Agriculture, Food and Rural Enterprise in Northern Ireland. The topic of the meeting was soil health.
We're inviting farmers, growers, foresters, businesses and researchers to apply for a share of £12.5 million to focus on the research and development of sustainable farm-based proteins.
There has been widespread media coverage of the Environment Agency's annual report on the environmental performance of England's nine water and sewerage companies. The report - covered by the Guardian, Evening Standard, Times, BBC, Independent, Telegraph and Financial Times - ...
The government has committed to maintain the farming budget for England at £2.4 billion per year throughout this parliament. We will be gradually reducing spending on Basic Payments each year over the next 6 years. Instead, we will make the money available to farmers through one-off grants for capital investment in equipment and technology, and ongoing payments for environmental actions and related advice and support. Farmers will be able to get paid for a combination of actions that they choose, to suit their farm business, food production and the environment.
In 2021, we launched a new £12.5m pilot programme funded by Treasury's Shared Outcomes Fund to research and tackle biodiversity loss and climate change. The pilot programme aims to test approaches for creating and restoring species rich habitats, such as ...
On 12th December 2018, at 7am, a fish tagging team began fishing on the tuna grounds within St Helena, with the goal of tagging a number of yellowfin and bigeye tuna. The team, including staff from St Helena Government, Stanford ...
In the latest video in the series about the North Cumbria Farmers Group Test and Trial, uplands livestock farmers Steve and Colin explain their reasons for taking part.
Today's blog looks at Government action to tackle air pollution
Spring and summer can trigger a range of problems for fisheries, and it's important to understand how to prepare and protect them. It's vital that anglers and fishery managers recognise the risks posed by warmer weather; remain vigilant for signs ...
It's really encouraging that so many vessels across our English inshore have installed their onboard I-VMS devices and received the grant funding to re-imburse their costs, but we realise there is still much work to do. We have now hit ...
Today there has been widespread coverage of warnings by Emma Howard Boyd, Chair of the Environment Agency and Interim Chair of the Green Finance Institute, of how widespread greenwashing is compromising efforts to prepare for climate impacts. Her comments have ...
Neil Riddle is Forestry Commission's Head of Natural Environment. Here, he discusses our work with Natural England on the new trees and peat guidance.
New initiatives announced by the UK Government at the UN Ocean Conference this week to progress our mission to protect at least 30% of the global ocean by 2030 have received coverage in outlets including the Independent, Evening Standard and ...
