OAKBANK NEWS AND BLOG

We are delighted to announce the launch of The Oakbank Pod, a new series exploring the practical realities of modern land management and conservation across the UK. We will be bringing together farmers, gamekeepers, ecologists and other specialists to share their insights, real‑world experience and stories behind successful conservation projects. Episode 6 - Conservation Communication with Emily Graham 👉 The episode is available to stream here, as well as on Apple Podcasts a

Tens of thousands of agreements are about to end, a new SFI26 round has opened with a fixed pot, and Higher Tier is coming back gradually. Here is the picture as it stands in July 2026. England is heading towards the biggest churn of agri-environment agreements for some time. The individual announcements paint one picture and we have brought together some headline figures to highlight another. Fig 1. Live agri-environment agreements in England by scheme, 2023 to 2030; figures

Defra's offer of £225m capital grants for farm investment in England including an interactive summary.

The government's 25-year roadmap puts soil, habitat and farm wildlife at the heart of food production. We'd urge every land manager to read carefully how it intends to pay for all this, because the smart money may be on acting now. Yesterday (24th June), Defra published Farming Roadmap 2050: Growing England's Future, alongside its response to Baroness Batters' Farming Profitability Review. For those of us who have spent our careers arguing that productive farming and a recove

The UK’s funding mechanisms for supporting innovation in agriculture have repeatedly exposed gaps between agricultural research and real-world application. Farmers looking for financially beneficial and environmentally responsible production systems often hit the buffers when it comes to interpreting complex trials data and results. So, the latest ADOPT fund (Accelerating Development of Practices and Technologies) was launched last year. In particular an Oakbank/Toby Simpson/

Today, we are pleased to welcome Phil Jarvis as Oakbank’s new Head of Operations. Phil brings an exceptional combination of hands-on farming experience, environmental land management expertise and industry leadership. His career has included arable and livestock farming in the UK, over 20 years with the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust’s Allerton Project and senior roles within Albanwise. He is a Chartered Environmentalist and former Chair of the National Farmers Union En

At 5am on Saturday 30th May, nine intrepid walkers set out from the Ben Nevis Visitors Centre in Fort William. The challenge was to climb the three highest peaks in the UK in under 24 hours to raise money for Brain Tumour Research. The mighty Oakbank team aka Barringer's Army, would climb over 3,000 metres, do 25 miles worth of walking, travel over 1,500 miles and, throughout this endeavour, would be surrounded by great people. All of this was in memory of our dear friend and

The publication this month of a joint survey by Confor, Royal Forestry Society (RFS) and Country Land and Business Association (CLA) has put woodland owners squarely in the spotlight. Its findings make for interesting reading: almost half of the 204 respondents expect to be affected by the April 2026 changes to Agricultural Property Relief (APR) and Business Property Relief (BPR) and nearly 60% say they are now less likely to plant new woodland as a result. Apparently, some h

On 15 April 2026, Defra published responses to two parallel Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) consultations and opened a third on an additional targeted exemption for brownfield residential development. Together, the responses confirm when major infrastructure projects will start drawing on the off-site biodiversity unit market, exempt around half of the smallest residential sites, and broaden the geography in which a land parcel can supply units to a development. What has been con

The UK Government has launched a joint consultation and call for evidence on modernising fertilisers legislation , led by Defra and supported by the Scottish Government, Welsh Government and the Northern Ireland Executive. The consultation is now open and will run until 13th May 2026. What is the UK fertiliser consultation proposing? The proposals aim to repeal existing fertiliser product legislation (which covers the rules surrounding the supply of fertiliser) and replace it

The UK Government has published England’s Land Use Framework, aiming to balance multiple, competing demands on our finite land resources, support smarter land use decisions and accelerate environmental improvements by providing a "single, shared vision" and better data for planners, farmers and communities. It comes after years of calls for such a joined-up approach, notably from Henry Dimbleby, who in his 2021 National Food Strategy recommended a rural land use framework (th

Addressing deer pressure is a core concern for anyone managing woodlands and the government has just unveiled a 10-year plan to help. In England, land use change, introduction of non-native species and a lack of natural predators have contributed to increased deer impacts. Without action, excessive deer pressure prevents young trees from establishing, degrades habitats (for example, undergrowth habitat loss has contributed to over 90% increase in nightingale numbers since the

The Secretary of State for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs, Emma Reynolds, announced in her speech at the NFU Conference the welcome return of the Farming Equipment and Technology Fund (FETF) 2026, with a dedicated budget of £50m. FETF 2026 will re-open for applications on 17th March and will be available to all eligible farmers, growers, forestry owners and contractors in England (those registered with the RPA with an Single Business Identifier (SBI) number.) 💡 This annou

Defra has unveiled new details of the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) 2026 scheme in England. Announced today at the NFU conference, the SFI 2026 offer will reopen with some significant changes, including more restricted options and a £100,000 payment cap on agreements. At the Oxford Farming Conference in January , Environment Secretary Emma Reynolds already signalled fewer, more targeted options, highlighting that 90% of SFI spending went on fewer than 40 of the 102 avai

This week, a new global report published by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) examines the interdependencies between business and biodiversity. In a world that has to grapple with new ways of achieving economic growth, without further degrading nature, the assessment is that despite data quality and methodologies improving, global business remains too tangled in complexity to deliver meaningful nature-positive action

Another season closes and, unless you are packing for late partridges abroad, the game book and a few photographs are doing most of the talking. Before those memories fade, February is the month to look after what’s left, walk the ground with clear eyes and set foundations for next season. Keep feeding, keep cover Natural food is at its thinnest in February and March, and winter cover is at a premium, especially in locations particularly badly affected by the 2025 drought and

As I made my way to Oxford for my second year at the Conference, the weather warnings made a part of me wonder if we’ll all end up snowed‑in together in the Examination Rooms, Ministers included. It would certainly allow plenty of time for the kind of in‑depth conversations farming needs right now! Joking aside, the Oxford Farming Conference always feels like the perfect place to take stock of where policy in practice is heading, particularly in England. December brought some

The following are good reasons for pruning broadleaf trees in your woodland: to clear rides and tracks for safety reasons to improve appearance to improve the form of the trees for timber and therefore value purposes, i.e. formative pruning This article covers the last two. What is Formative Pruning? Formative pruning is an operation carried out on young trees with the objective of ultimately producing a single straight stem of at least 3 m in height with small branches t

Today, the Department for the Environment Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) has published the new Environmental Improvement Plan (EIP) for England , - a "detailed roadmap" to deliver legally binding environmental targets under the Environment Act 2021. Alongside the EIP, the government has announced £500 million in public funding for Landscape Recovery , designed to leverage private finance such as Biodiversity Net Gain units and carbon credits, and £85 million to improve and r

This month we bid fond farewell to Ian Gould, who retires from the Oakbank business at the end of 2025, and Jamie Gunn, who is beginning an exciting new chapter in the North of England. We salute their achievements and celebrate how Oakbank-trained talent is helping shape the UK countryside and our industry. Ian Gould: cover-crop revolutionary As co-founder of Oakbank alongside Tim Furbank, Ian has spent more than two decades setting Oakbank up for success as a centre of exce