From 1 January 2026, a significant shift in agricultural policy comes into force.
DAERA’s new land eligibility rules under the Farm Sustainability Payment are now being implemented. First proposed in 2021 and ratified in 2024, they have been long-awaited by environmental organisations, land managers and those working on agricultural and environmental policy. Despite the scale of the change, their arrival appears to have been met with a muted level of interest across much of the industry.
At their core, the new rules radically simplify what counts as eligible land. Almost all land on the farm now qualifies, except for hard features such as buildings, yards and lanes. Crucially, rushes, scrub, bracken, bog and other so-called ‘soft’ features are no longer treated as a liability, but recognised for the biodiversity, carbon storage, soil protection and water quality benefits they provide.
This change allows space for natural regeneration, wet corners, species-rich rush pasture and the traditional ‘hare’s corner’ — those awkward, marginal bits of land that were never suited to machinery but are ideal for wildlife. Sparing land from the flail or plough once risked a penalty, but can now be a positive and legitimate farming choice.
Why this matters for nature on farms
Farmed land covers over 70% of Northern Ireland, which means that farmers who want to, and can afford to, make space for nature are critically important for the future of our wildlife. At the same time, biodiversity on farmland is under sustained pressure from nutrient pollution, habitat loss and the cumulative impacts of intensification.
Given the scale and significance of farming in Northern Ireland, nature’s recovery — or continuing decline — may largely be decided on working family farms.
How we got here
Agri-environment schemes are the most obvious way that farmers are rewarded for managing land for nature, with specific payments for positive actions for both species and habitats. Unfortunately, schemes in Northern Ireland are underfunded compared to other parts of the UK and Ireland and are currently in transition, meaning they are not available to all the farmers who would benefit from this support. Ulster Wildlife and other environmental and farming organisations are currently pressing DAERA for new schemes with wider ambition and reach.
Farmers have also long been eligible for other forms of public funding, dating back to the food shortages of the Second World War, which placed a sharp focus on the need for a robust and productive food supply, later formalised through the Common Agricultural Policy. Early iterations of this subsidy system prioritised production, driving widespread habitat loss in the race for increased output. By the 1980s, this approach had delivered food surpluses, most famously the so-called ‘butter mountains’, while headage-based payments encouraged overstocking. In the uplands, the impacts were stark, with heather-clad hills turning black as grazing pressure and trampling exposed bare peat.
These unintended consequences led to the MacSharry reforms at EU level in 1992, which began the shift away from headage and production payments and towards a broader mix of set-aside, area-based payments and the early development of agri-environment measures. Over subsequent decades, particularly following the MacSharry reforms, this evolved into the area-based and compliance-driven Common Agricultural Policy, and more recently into the post-Brexit agricultural policies, familiar to farmers today.
Since the mid‑2000s, and latterly through the Basic Payment Scheme from 2015, farmers in Northern Ireland have received area‑based payments for keeping land in ‘good agricultural and environmental condition’, alongside compliance requirements covering animal welfare, soils, water and the use of chemicals and medicines. The current agricultural budget in Northern Ireland is just over £300 million, with the majority paid directly to farmers on an area basis, determined by the number of eligible hectares claimed.
While this sounds encouraging from an environmental perspective, the definition of land eligibility was based entirely on agricultural productivity. Scrub, rushy corners, ponds, bogs, wetlands and overly wide hedges were classed as ‘non-productive’ and therefore ineligible. This sent a clear signal that these features were undesirable from a policy perspective and constrained farm income where habitats were retained. It was a well-meaning policy with unintended consequences that contributed to significant habitat loss. Statutory designations such as ASSIs, alongside agri-environment schemes, became the main, and relatively limited, tools available to slow the decline of nature.
