Environmental Stewardship

This valuable source of funding through agri-environment stewardship can be a challenging subject for farmers and landowners, so why not let us handle the work on your behalf?

We carry out farm plans and give advice to clients on options that will suit them, yet still achieve funding. James Davies of Environmental LandCare is our Higher Level Stewardship specialist.

Stewardship payments are funded by modulation of the Single Farm Payment and come in two levels:

Organic Entry Level Stewardship (OELS) is a 'whole farm' scheme, open to farmers who manage all or part of their land organically and who are not receiving aid under the Organic Aid Scheme (OAS) or the Organic Farming Scheme (OFS)

Higher Level Stewardship (HLS) aims to deliver significant environmental benefits in high priority situations and areas. HLS is discretionary and concentrates on the more complex types of management, where land managers need advice and support and where agreements need to be tailored to local circumstances

Case study

Mr C moved to this area after purchasing an 800-acre grassland stock farm with a small amount of arable land. Our first suggestion was to put options onto the worst-quality land and use low-impact fertilisers. We also suggested over-wintered stubble to encourage wild birds, spring cropping, hedgerow cutting, buffer (set-aside) margins around fields, into corners, and next to woodlands where the yield would be low.

Following our advice a Natural England surveyor visited and Mr C gained his grant.