Policy and Regulation

The Basic Payment Scheme (the equivalent to the EU Pillar 1 payments) is expected to roll over until 2023, subject to funding from the UK government.  A ‘Sustainable Farming Scheme’ will commence in 2025. 

To be eligible for BPS funding, a farmer must engage in cross compliance with environmental or animal welfare regulations (for example, any hedges must not be cut between 1^st March – 31^st August, to protect nesting birds).

The Basic Payment Scheme is expected to roll over in Scotland until 2025.  To be eligible, farmers have to practise cross compliance with environmental and animal welfare regulations (the land has to be maintained under Good Environmental and Ecological Condition). 

The ‘Greening’ component of the BPS is applied for permanent pasture designated as environmentally sensitive grassland or Ecological Focus Areas (EFAs), with 5% of an arable farm to be in an EFA.  There is a separate Forestry Grant Scheme.

Active farmers receive payments under the Basic Payment Scheme (BPS), although BPS payments are subject to cross-compliance to ensure that environmental measures are adopted.

There is also an optional agri-environmental Environmental Farming Scheme until 2023.

Eligibility for Grant Funding – Basic Payment Scheme

Hedges (including fenced-off hedges) are eligible up to a maximum width of 4 m.

The Basic Payment Scheme has been operating as it did before the UK left the EU, with recipients required to comply with cross-compliance.  However, it is being phased out and payments have been reduced each year.  From 2024 until 2027 existing recipients of BPS will receive annually decreasing delinked BPS payments, but BPS will not be open for new applicants.  From 2024 BPS will be replaced by Environmental Land Management schemes (ELMs), which will have three components.  The Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) - will pay for management changes directed at improving environmenta

Eligibility for grant funding

Pillar 1

Farmers in receipt of Basic Payment Scheme (BPS) payment may be eligible for the greening component.  If a farmer has more than 15 ha of land, 5% must be in an Ecological Focus Area. 

Hedges and trees in a line are considered as Landscape Features, and qualify for BPS as long as they are retained and maintained.  If a hedge must be removed for any reason, it must be replaced elsewhere on the land parcel. 

The countries of the UK are producing devolved plans for financial support to agriculture following the UK's departure from the European Union.  These plans are loosely based on the EU regulations, but are showing increasing divergence with time.