Energy & Environment

The Farming Investment Fund: more notice, more information and a new opportunity ahead

Last month, we launched the Farming Investment Fund. It included the Farming Equipment and Technology Fund and the Water Management theme of the Farming Transformation Fund. Since the launch, we've had regular conversations to hear your views our approach. We want to make improvements as we go. In this post, I'll share what we heard and what we're doing to make things better as a result.

Updated: Thu Dec 16 2021

Future Farming Podcast: the Farming Investment Fund

In the latest episode of the Future Farming podcast, Programme Director Janet Hughes talks to the policy lead for the Farming Investment Fund, Sarah Evered. Listen to find out how the team designed the fund, what we've learned and what's coming next.

Updated: Wed Dec 15 2021

More opportunities to put your questions to us

We're going to do a monthly Q&A session on The Farming Forum. In this post, I'll share our approach to Q&As and the upcoming themes and dates of future sessions.

Updated: Wed Dec 15 2021

Working together to protect important marine habitats in Studland Bay

The Marine Management Organisation (MMO) recently announced the introduction of a voluntary no-anchor zone in Studland Bay Marine Conservation Zone (MCZ) In this blog, Chris Graham from MMO's Marine Conservation Team answers questions that came up during the consultation. ...

Updated: Wed Dec 15 2021

Broadwater Brook urban chalk stream restoration

In today's blog we look at how the Environment Agency helped to restore 1km of urban chalk stream in West Sussex. By Gareth Williams, Environment Programme manager Solent and South Downs In order to restore one chalk stream in ...

Updated: Tue Dec 07 2021

How the Sustainable Farming Incentive will develop

Last week we published details on how the new Sustainable Future Incentive scheme will work in 2022. The Sustainable Farming Incentive in 2022 is very much a starting point. We are rolling out the scheme incrementally. We want to test, learn and improve as we go, and expand the scheme to fit the available budget each year. In this post, I'll give you an idea of how the scheme will expand over the next few years.

Updated: Tue Dec 07 2021

US market to open doors to UK lamb from 2022

There has been widespread coverage in the Independent, Express, Evening Standard, City AM, the Scotsman, Press and Journal, as well as others, of our announcement that exports of British lamb to the US market can resume from next year after ...

Updated: Mon Dec 06 2021

There's more to trees than meets the eye

We summarise the far-reaching benefits woodland creation has on farming businesses - helping farmers to diversify, generate additional income and support wider land management goals.

Updated: Fri Dec 03 2021

Introducing the Moorland and Rough Grazing Standard

I recently joined the Sustainable Farming Incentive team to help develop some of the standards for 2022/23. In particular, those focused on upland farming and moorland management. In this post, I'll share more about the Moorland and Rough Grazing Standard.

Updated: Thu Dec 02 2021

Making the Sustainable Farming Incentive work for tenants

We are developing our new environmental land management schemes so that there is an offer for all farm types. This includes tenants on tenanted land. In this post, I'd like to share how we're designing the Sustainable Farming Incentive so that tenants can access the scheme in a fair and straightforward way.

Updated: Thu Dec 02 2021

Regulating a geological disposal facility to protect the environment

Dr Candida Lean, a Nuclear Waste Assessor at the Environment Agency, reports on our work in West Cumbria and Lincolnshire to share information with communities about the regulation of a geological disposal facility. I've worked at the Environment Agency for ...

Updated: Wed Dec 01 2021

Restoring England's 'Great Barrier Reef'

By Charles Rangeley- Wilson, Chair of the Chalk Stream Restoration Group. On 15 October 2021, the Chalk Streams Restoration Group marked a major milestone on the journey to restore England's chalk streams. The group was formed in 2020 to bring ...

Updated: Tue Nov 30 2021

How farmers in protected landscapes are using their funding

You might remember that the Farming in Protected Landscapes programme opened for applications in July. In August, we shared a video made by some of our Protected Landscape colleagues about the sorts of projects that were eligible for funding. In this post, I'd like to share some examples of the things land managers and farmers are doing with their funding.

Updated: Mon Nov 29 2021

National Tree Week launch media coverage

As part of National Tree Week, we have announced a new community forest for Cumbria and awarded £12million of funding to help plant over quarter of million trees

Updated: Mon Nov 29 2021