Half full or half empty? What did 2025 mean for the farming transition – Inside track

As 2026 begins, there’s no denying the deep frustration surrounding farming policy. Questions swirl around exactly what the farming minister’s priorities are, when schemes will be opened for applications and whether the Landscape Recovery scheme will get more than the £500 million that was announced in December.

With only a year remaining of the EU-style Basic Payment Scheme, many hoped that future development of the new Environmental Land Management Scheme would be clearer by now. 

In 2025, the government tried to rebuild its relations with farmers after the Treasury’s inheritance tax decision in October 2024 but it then closed the Sustainable Farming Incentive scheme in March without warning. These decisions dominated the headlines, but there were other more positive signs of progress.  

Perhaps the most significant decision this year was the spending review settlement. After much speculation about possible cuts, the farming budget came out relatively unscathed at an average of £2.3 billion a year until 2028-29. Some decried this as a real terms cut – which it was – while many were relieved it wasn’t worse. We were pleased to see Rachel Reeves’ budget specify that this funding “will make a significant contribution to the Environment Act targets, including improving the quality of water, air, and spaces for wildlife so biodiversity can thrive”.  

Whilst Europe is faltering in its green farming transition, this government deserves credit for continuing the journey the previous Conservative government began.   

The Farming Roadmap must give certainty   
But, for many farmers, the phase out of the Basic Payment Scheme means they’re losing an important part of their income without knowing when, or if, it will be replaced. Progress on the Environmental Land Management (ELM) schemes, which have replaced it, was slow last year, not helped by the reshuffle in September that saw Secretary of State Steve Reed, and experienced farming minister Daniel Zeichner, moved on. In their place came Emma Reynolds and Angela Eagle, with little experience of this policy area between them.  

Despite that, there has been progress: the Higher Tier scheme re-opened for select applications in September; and two Landscape Recovery projects have moved into phase. But the government needs to get other Landscape Recovery projects over the line before investors lose confidence in the one part of ELM that is set up to bring in the private finance that Minette Batters’ review into farm profitability found to be desperately needed. With SFI closed, and no new round of Landscape Recovery, the only ELM scheme currently accepting applications is Higher Tier but only on a small-scale, invitation-only, basis. 

Farmers want to know when different schemes will be open for applications, how many applicants will be allowed into them, and what the schemes will fund. The obvious way to deliver that is through the promised Farming Roadmap, due this year. Angela Eagle described it to the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee recently as setting out the “how” farmers will be supported to deliver public goods, with the forthcoming Land Use Framework providing the “what”. The Carbon Budget Growth Delivery Plan and the Environmental Improvement Plan were both refreshed at the end of last year but both lack detail on how exactly farmers will be supported to deliver the targets they have been set. 

The Land Use Framework is needed soon
Major progress was made on the Land Use Framework, with a consultation running from January to April 2025. We’ve been asking for this for a long time, and welcomed the consultation’s approach to mapping areas where ‘public goods’, like nature restoration and carbon storage, supported by the farming schemes could be delivered at least cost to food production. This is all the more important with climate impacts making the 2025 harvest the  on record. 

There’s a lot left to do in 2026. In the first quarter, we hope the Land Use Framework will be published and set out priority areas for where the farming budget will be invested, swiftly followed by a Farming Roadmap showing what opportunities farmers will have to get involved. As part of that, rapid progress is needed to expand uptake of the Higher Tier and Landscape Recovery schemes in the least productive landscapes, particularly the uplands. A sharpened Sustainable Farming Incentive scheme must also be re-opened, attuned to driving the broad uptake of measures needed to bring down emissions from farming across the country

In many ways, 2025 has felt like a slow year for farming policy, with many growing frustrated, but it did cement the transition to ELM in a way that wasn’t guaranteed at the start of the year.  

But, we can’t have another year of progress at that speed: this year, the government must capitalise on the groundwork made so far, increase certainty and start turning farm livelihoods around by enrolling many more into ELM schemes.