Environmental Stewardship
Environmental Stewardship is an agri-environment scheme that provides funding to farmers and other land managers in England to deliver effective environmental management on your land.
How does Environmental Stewardship work?
There are are four elements to Environmental Stewardship:
Entry Level Stewardship (ELS) provides a straightforward approach to supporting the good stewardship of the countryside. This is done through simple and effective land management that goes beyond the Single Payment Scheme requirement to maintain land in good agricultural and environmental condition. It is open to all farmers and landowners.
Organic Entry Level Stewardship (OELS) is the organic strand of ELS. It is geared to organic and organic/conventional mixed farming systems and is open to all farmers not receiving Organic Farming Scheme aid.
Uplands Entry Level Stewardship (Uplands ELS) was launched in February 2010 to support hill farmers with payments for environmental management. This strand of Environmental Stewardship succeeds the Hill Farm Allowance. It is open to all farmers with land in Severely Disadvantaged Areas, regardless of the size of the holding.
Higher Level Stewardship (HLS) involves more complex types of management and agreements are tailored to local circumstances. HLS applications will be assessed against specific local targets and agreements will be offered where they meet these targets and represent good value for money.
Where can I find out more?
For more information about Environmental Stewardship read Look after your land with Environmental Stewardship
, call 0300 060 0011, contact your regional office or go to an event in your area for farmers and land managers.
Environmental Stewardship builds on the recognised success of the Environmentally Sensitive Areas Scheme and the Countryside Stewardship Scheme.
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Helping to bring a Georgian park landscape back to life
(2 November 2012) The high standard of a project that has helped return a historic parkland in Leicestershire to its former Georgian glory was highly praised at a prestigious Architectural Awards ceremony held in London on Wednesday 31 October.
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Rob is crowned ‘Countryside Farmer of the Year’ at farming industry awards
(5 October 2012) Rob Allan from Oxfordshire has scooped the prestigious ‘Countryside Farmer of the Year’ Award at this year’s Farmers Weekly Awards ceremony, which took place in London on Thursday 4 October.
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Help with search for one of the UK’s most threatened birds
(18 September 2012) Operation Turtle Dove, a project trying to save the UK’s most threatened farmland bird, has been given a helping hand by members of the public who’ve been calling a special hotline to report sightings.
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Making Environmental Stewardship more effective
(10 August 2012) From 1st January 2013, five new Entry Level Stewardship (ELS) and Organic ELS options will be available to Environmental Stewardship customers.
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Latest news
- Land management
developments - latest information on transition to the next programme and development of a new scheme - HLS package for farmland birds: (109kb)
- internal guidance used by Natural England advisers - updated March 2013 - Celebrating 25 years of agri-environment schemes
- Official list of changes to fourth edition of Environmental Stewardship handbooks has been released. ELS, OELS, HLS
- Fourth editions of the Environmental Stewardship (ES) handbooks now available to download. ELS, OELS, HLS
- More news ...
Information for land agents
Online services for farmers
GOV.UK now provides access to services such as RPA Online, ELS Online and Defra Farm Surveys and Assessments.
SPS Online
Each year over 100,000 farmers apply to the Rural Payments Agency for the Single Payment Scheme (SPS). SPS Online is the new electronic service that makes the application process quicker and easier.
Related websites