SFI 2026: Water, soils and security for arable farms

For arable farmers across East Anglia, water has become one of the defining constraints on both productivity and resilience. Extended dry springs, intense rainfall events and growing regulatory pressure around abstraction and nutrient losses mean that water security is now as critical as soil health. Against that backdrop, the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) 2026 places a stronger practical emphasis on actions that protect water, manage runoff and improve soil‑water function, even as the overall scheme becomes more streamlined.

With 71 actions available, down from 102 in previous SFI offers, SFI 2026 is more selective, but for arable businesses in Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex and Cambridgeshire, many of the remaining actions are directly relevant to safeguarding water resources while maintaining productive rotations.

Water protection as a core delivery theme

Defra’s decision to remove paperwork‑based assessment actions – such as soil, nutrient and IPM plans – means that SFI income now comes from physical land management that delivers visible outcomes. For East Anglia, those outcomes are closely tied to water: reducing diffuse pollution, slowing flow during heavy rainfall, holding moisture through dry periods and protecting watercourses that increasingly sit under catchment‑level scrutiny.

Actions relating to buffer strips, grass margins, watercourse protection and in‑field habitat are therefore central to how SFI 2026 applies to arable systems in the region. These features act as the first line of defence against sediment, nutrients and pesticides leaving fields, while also providing opportunities to remove low‑yielding areas from production with minimal commercial downside.

Field margins and buffers: low disruption, high water benefit

Arable margins and buffers remain some of the most reliable SFI actions for East Anglian farms. Many are already managed at reduced intensity due to poor yields, awkward shapes or machinery constraints. Under SFI 2026, these areas can deliver multiple water‑related benefits: intercepting runoff, filtering nitrates and phosphates, and stabilising banks along ditches and streams.

For farms operating in high‑risk catchments -particularly on light land draining into chalk streams or sensitive rivers -well‑designed buffers provide a practical way of demonstrating environmental delivery without compromising core cropped areas. Importantly, these actions also align closely with cross‑compliance, abstraction licensing expectations and future regulatory trends, making them a strategic rather than purely financial choice.

Soils as the foundation of water security

Although SFI 2026 no longer pays for soil assessments, soil‑focused management actions remain fundamental. For East Anglia’s soils, the ability to capture, retain and slowly release water is critical in a climate increasingly defined by extremes.

Actions that encourage ground cover, reduced erosion, improved organic matter and reduced soil disturbance directly support water infiltration during heavy rain and water retention during drought. While payment rates for some popular actions such as herbal leys have been reduced for new agreements, their role in improving soil structure and drought resilience remains highly relevant -particularly in break phases or where land is already struggling to justify high‑input cropping.

The key shift under SFI 2026 is that these soil actions work best when tied to long‑term rotation planning, rather than being treated as stand‑alone income generators.

Managing winter runoff and protecting waterways

Winter rainfall intensity has increased across the eastern counties, with runoff from bare soils becoming a growing concern. SFI 2026 continues to support actions that reduce winter exposure, such as overwinter stubble and other ground‑cover options, but with tighter controls.

Enhanced overwinter stubble is now subject to a 25% whole‑farm area cap, ensuring that food production is not excessively displaced. For large arable units, this encourages smarter placement: focusing on fields with high erosion risk, steep gradients or known runoff pathways into ditches and rivers, rather than blanket adoption across all land.

Used strategically, these actions help slow water movement through the landscape, reducing pressure downstream while also protecting valuable topsoil.

Targeted water delivery

Several structural changes in SFI 2026 reinforce a more water‑focused, selective approach. Each business is limited to one agreement, with a £100,000 annual cap, and rotational actions are fixed at their Year 1 area. For larger arable farms, this removes the option to expand water‑related actions later if catchment pressure increases.

As a result, Year 1 planning becomes critical, particularly for farms in abstraction‑sensitive or nutrient‑vulnerable areas. Mapping runoff pathways, drainage routes and watercourses before applying is now an essential part of maximising both compliance and long‑term value.

For East Anglian arable businesses, SFI 2026 should be viewed less as a replacement for lost direct payments and more as one component of a wider farm water strategy. Combined with private water storage, efficient irrigation, improved soil management and precision input use, SFI actions can help build resilience against both drought and excess rainfall.

In this context, SFI rewards farms that use margins, buffers and soil management not simply to meet scheme rules, but to protect water as a productive asset. As water availability increasingly defines what can be grown and where, SFI 2026 offers targeted support for arable farmers willing to plan for that reality – delivering environmental benefits while safeguarding the future of East Anglia’s farming systems.