SFI 2025 and farm solar: how to stack the income

Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) 2025 — Defra’s flagship post-Brexit farm support scheme replacing BPS over the 2024–2027 transition — has continued to expand the range of actions farms can claim alongside on-farm renewable energy installations. While SFI itself doesn’t pay for solar PV directly, several actions stack meaningfully with farm-building solar projects, particularly ground-mount agrivoltaics and biodiversity-focused installs. Here’s the 2026 picture for England farms.

What SFI is and how it works

SFI is the largest of Defra’s three Environmental Land Management (ELM) schemes, available to England farms with land entered into an SFI agreement. Farms select from a menu of “actions” — specific land management practices — and receive annual payments per hectare for delivering them. SFI 2025 expanded the action menu significantly, with more actions relevant to mixed-farm operations and more flexibility on combining actions across the holding.

Application is via the Rural Payments Agency portal during specified annual windows. SFI agreements typically run 3 years from start date, with annual reviews and re-applications. Welsh, Scottish and Northern Irish farms have different schemes (Welsh Government Rural Investment Scheme, Scottish Rural Investment Scheme, NI Environmental Farming Scheme respectively) — most of the principles below apply with country-specific variation.

SFI actions that pair with rooftop solar

Rooftop solar on farm buildings is independent of SFI — installing PV on a livestock shed doesn’t directly trigger any SFI payment. But several SFI actions complement rooftop solar by extending the sustainability narrative across the wider holding: pollinator margins (PRF1, ~£589/ha/year for 6m unmown margins along hedgerows); skylark plots (CSAM1, ~£124/ha/year for nesting plots in cereal fields); hedgerow management (HRW1–HRW3, per-metre rates for surveying, cutting, and tree planting); IPM actions (IPM1–IPM4, integrated pest management on arable land); soil management actions (SAM1–SAM3, organic matter and soil-test-based actions). A typical 600-acre mixed farm can stack 3–6 of these actions for £8,000–£25,000 of annual SFI income alongside the rooftop solar install — useful but separate income streams.

SFI actions that pair with ground-mount agrivoltaics

Ground-mount agrivoltaics — solar PV installed on agricultural land that continues to support farming activity underneath the panels — is where SFI integration becomes substantial. Several actions are explicitly compatible with elevated panels and grazing or low-growing crops underneath: HUM2 (hay meadow management) on grazed agrivoltaic sites; CMR1 (creating mixed-species grass margins) around the panel array perimeter; BIO1–BIO3 (boundary-feature biodiversity actions) on hedgerows surrounding the array; SAM1 (soil organic matter testing) on the entire holding including agrivoltaic land. A typical 10-acre ground-mount agrivoltaic install with sheep grazing under raised panels can stack £4,000–£8,000/year of SFI income alongside the £900–£1,300/acre/year of ground-mount lease income from a third-party developer.

Sheep grazing under panels — the most established pairing

Sheep grazing under elevated ground-mount panels is the most established agrivoltaic model in the UK. The biology works well — sheep welfare is unaffected by raised panels (with 2.5m+ ground clearance), shade benefits sheep during summer heat stress, the panels reduce wind exposure in winter, and forage availability under panels is typically equivalent to open grazing. SFI actions for sheep agrivoltaic include: HUM2 (hay meadow management); CSP1 (chemical-free pasture management); CSAM2 (improving overall pasture diversity); and HRW2 (sympathetic hedge cutting around the array). Stack these with the ground-mount lease and the per-hectare income often equals or exceeds the income from non-PV grazing.

Soft fruit and protected horticulture under translucent panels

Agrivoltaics over soft fruit, salads, ornamentals, and protected horticulture is the newer and more complex frontier. Translucent or semi-transparent panels allow partial light through to the crops underneath; some crops (shade-tolerant leafy greens, hops, certain berries) tolerate or benefit from partial shading; SFI actions for this configuration include CMR2 (mixed-species cover crop in rotation) and IPM2 (integrated pest management on cropped land). Trials are ongoing across Defra-funded research programmes. For most UK soft fruit operations, the case for agrivoltaics is still under-evaluated — we recommend talking to your existing crop agronomist before committing to a major agrivoltaic install on cropped land.

How to apply SFI alongside solar

The application sequence we typically recommend: (1) commission the desk feasibility for any rooftop PV or ground-mount install (free, 7 working days from us); (2) review your existing SFI agreement and identify which actions could be added or extended to align with the solar install footprint; (3) submit the next SFI application window with the additional actions included; (4) proceed with the solar install on the original timeline (rooftop installs don’t depend on SFI; ground-mount installs benefit from SFI alignment but don’t require it). We work with several rural advisory firms (Strutt & Parker, GSC Grays, Brown & Co, Carter Jonas) who can manage the SFI application alongside our solar delivery.

What about FiT, RHI, and the legacy schemes?

The Feed-in Tariff (FiT) closed to new applications in March 2019; the Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) closed in March 2022. Both schemes continue to pay existing recipients for the original contract lengths. New farm solar installations from 2020 onwards use SEG instead of FiT for export income, and there’s no direct equivalent to RHI for solar PV (PV doesn’t generate heat). Farms that already have FiT or RHI from earlier installations should continue to claim those payments — the schemes are honoured for their original terms even after closure to new entrants.

What this means for your project

SFI 2025 doesn’t directly pay for farm solar, but it stacks meaningfully with on-farm renewable installations through biodiversity, soil-health, and ground-mount agrivoltaic actions. Plan SFI applications alongside solar installation rather than separately. For ground-mount installs particularly, the combined annual income from ground-mount lease plus SFI biodiversity stacking often equals or exceeds the income from continued arable rotation on the same marginal land. For rooftop installs, SFI is independent but the broader sustainability narrative supports supermarket supplier audits and CDP Supply Chain reporting — material to long-term contract retention with major retailers.