OAKBANK NEWS AND BLOG

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

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

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