New app helps farmers stay on top of SFI rules and inspections
Farmers are increasingly turning to digital tools to cope with the growing paperwork and compliance demands of environmental schemes such as Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI).
Rising evidence requirements and scrutiny from the Rural Payments Agency (RPA) are adding pressure on both farmers and advisers, with record-keeping becoming a key part of avoiding penalties and passing inspections.
The Farm Consultancy Group (FCG) is among those adopting new technology, using Regeno’s Farmwalk app to make it easier to manage farm records and scheme compliance.
The system lets farmers and consultants capture photos, voice notes and documents while out in the field — such as recording grazing activity or taking images of field margins — and link them directly to scheme requirements.
It is being used to support SFI and Countryside Stewardship agreements, where accurate, accessible evidence is increasingly essential.
Steph Emmerson, director at FCG, said growing RPA demands had exposed the limits of traditional systems. “We were getting more and more requests… asking for field records and evidence to support stewardship claims,” she said.
While existing processes worked, she described them as “manual and time consuming”, highlighting the need for a faster and simpler approach.
Consultants regularly gather evidence such as grazing logs, seed invoices and on-farm photographs to ensure compliance rules are met — a process that can quickly become time-intensive without the right systems in place.
Steph said the new tool has helped improve both efficiency and service. “We were very good at getting clients into schemes, but we knew there was more we could do to support them with the ongoing record-keeping and evidence collection,” she said.
She added that “having everything in one place” makes the process easier to manage and improves how consultants support their clients.
The app is also helping reduce admin during day-to-day work. Consultants can record meetings, track actions and generate summaries instantly, cutting down time spent writing up notes later.
“Previously I would have a meeting, make notes and then later write up a summary,” Steph said. “Now I can almost send that summary during the meeting… which saves a lot of time.”
Kimberley Broughton, farm consultant at FCG, said the system is already making a noticeable difference to workload.
“Previously we would collect documents from clients, take photos on farm and then spend time filing everything back at the laptop,” she said, describing the process as “quite time consuming”.
She added that the app “makes the process much quicker and easier to manage”, particularly when dealing with large volumes of compliance evidence.
A key feature is its ability to highlight missing records before inspections or audits, helping farmers stay on top of requirements and reduce the risk of issues during checks.
“It flags up anything that’s missing, so you can quickly chase it or upload it,” Kimberley said, adding that it provides “confidence that everything is there and organised”.
Beyond environmental schemes, tools like this are expected to play a wider role in farm management. The platform also includes features such as a health and safety module and a Nitrate Vulnerable Zone (NVZ) calculator, extending its use beyond stewardship alone.
Kimberley said digital tools are likely to become a standard part of farm consultancy and compliance in the years ahead. “We can definitely see tools like this fitting into consultancy going forward,” she said, adding that it is “very user friendly” and easy to build into everyday work.
As environmental schemes continue to evolve and compliance demands grow, digital record-keeping is set to become an increasingly important part of how farms manage inspections, paperwork and scheme requirements.
