Defra recently announced the new Countryside Stewardship Higher Tier (CSHT) offer, one of three Environmental Land Management (ELM) schemes, to help incentivise farmers to deliver improvements for nature and support sustainable food production.
Farmers and land managers can now review the management actions and capital items that will offer funding under the new CSHT scheme to protect and enhance the environment, including sensitive sites like SSSIs.
What’s available for farmers and land managers
- 132 management actions and 151 capital items
- Quarterly payments to improve cash flow
- Monthly agreement start-dates rather than singular annual start-date
- Online application process and payments through Rural Payments Agency
Controlled roll-out
As with the Sustainable Farming Incentive, CSHT will initially open through a controlled rollout to ensure early adopters invited to join the scheme receive the necessary support and any necessary adjustments required can be made.
Natural England’s role
Natural England and the Forestry Commission will work with farmers and land managers invited to join the new CSHT scheme to develop their applications.
From 6th January 2025, they will work together with invited farmers and land managers to secure greater outcomes for nature. Natural England will initially focus on working with customers with expiring agri-environment or mixed agreements expiring in 2025, applicants who have completed preparatory work, and have approved plans such as an implementation plan. This will be achieved through pre-application visits in readiness for the first applications in summer 2025.
Natural England will engage with groups of these farmers and land managers monthly, so that there will be a bank of applicants ready to go once the CSHT scheme is fully open for applicants later in 2025.
Existing scheme agreements
To ensure continuity, farmers whose existing CSHT agreements expire in 2024 will be offered mirror agreements lasting 5 or 10 years. Those with Higher Level Stewardship (HLS) agreements expiring in 2024 will be offered two-year extensions, while those expiring in 2025 will be offered one or two-year extensions. Further information can be found on the Defra farming blogsite.
CSHT Guidance: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/countryside-stewardship-higher-tier-get-ready-to-apply
Capital items
Although guidance has been released on some new CSHT capital items which will be available through the Higher Tier Scheme, Defra is yet to make an announcement on the standalone Capital Grants Scheme (CGS) with many applicants still waiting to hear if their application will be processed. It is expected that this will be made some time after the Spring budget on 26th March 2025.
Help & advice
For further help and advice, please contact our Stewardship & Grants team on 01981 590514.