The claim window for existing Countryside Stewardship (CS) revenue and Environmental Stewardship (ES) agreements has opened today.
Farmers must submit an annual declaration or claim before 15 May to receive full payment for actions carried out in 2024.
Any claims submitted after this date, up to the final deadline of 2 September, will have a late claim reduction applied to payments.
CS and ES provide financial incentives for farmers and land managers to support food production whilst looking after the environment.
In 2023, the Rural Payments Agency (RPA) supplemented the existing online claim process for CS, with an annual declaration option in cases where no changes are required.
This will remain available in the Rural Payments service for 2024, the RPA confirmed, with farmers able to generate and submit an automated revenue claim without needing to complete each section of the claim form.
The agency's chief executive, Paul Caldwell said: “We will continue processing claims as quickly as possible to get payments into farmers’ bank accounts.
“I encourage eligible farmers to submit their claims for CS revenue and ES agreements before the deadline to ensure they are rewarded for their efforts to produce food sustainably while improving the environment.”
The RPA is also reminding farmers that those who wish to transfer some or all their ‘reference amount’ for delinked payments to another business must do so by 10 May 2024.
For example, farmers may wish to do this if their business has split, merged with another business or been given a new Single Business Identifier since they were paid BPS 2020.
The RPA replaced the Basic Payment Scheme (BPS) in England with delinked payments which will be paid each year from 2024 to 2027.
The agency plans to make advance payments of around 50% from 1 August and the balance payments from 1 December. There is no need to apply for delinked payments.
The amount farmers receive will decrease each year as progressive reductions are applied.
It is calculated based on a ‘reference amount’ which will normally be the average of a farmer's BPS payments made for the 2020 to 2022 scheme years.
