Scottish Government confirms BPS conditions for 2025

The Scottish Government has recently issued further guidance clarifying the conditionality we were expecting for the Basic Payment Scheme 2025.

Payments to remain unchanged, and will include new enhanced conditionality to account for 50% of the Basic Payment, making this support conditional on meeting essential standards of farming activity.

The introduction of a Whole Farm Plan from 2025 will require farmers and crofters to complete at least two baseline activities from the list of options below. These baseline activities are required to be completed prior to the 15th May Single Application Form deadline. We envisage that all conditions may be required from 2026 as the Whole Farm Plan develops.

The below activities should help claimants to highlight areas of improvement or whether they are performing well, enabling them to make changes to improve efficiency and productivity whilst contributing to climate / biodiversity / emissions targets.

In addition to the above, two further conditions are being introduced from 2025:

• Changes to Cross Compliance measure ‘GAEC 6 – Maintenance of soil organic matter’ prohibiting a range of activities being carried out on Peatlands and Wetlands, including a ban on ploughing or cultivation of such sites, which includes new drainage or maintaining existing drains if the works cause these sites to dry out.

• Scottish Suckler Beef Support Scheme (SSBSS) new stipulation that calves will only be eligible if their dam has a calving interval threshold of 410 days or less, or if it’s the first registered birth from the dam. All animals claimed from 2025 scheme year onwards will be subject to the above regardless of their year of birth.

Current support

Grant funding is currently available towards most baseline activities, whether through Preparing for Sustainable Farming (PSF) or Farm Advisory Service (FAS). Therefore, we urge applicants who are not already undertaking these practices to instruct these reports with plenty of notice to take advantage of the grants currently available.

The Preparing for Sustainable Farming (PSF) programme, established through the National Test Programme, is scheduled to stop after the 2024 claim period (works completed by 31.12.24 and paid for prior to claim – deadline 28.2.25).

The Farm Advisory Service (FAS) funding is in discussions to be available for a further 3 years, offering a broader range of funded outcomes, including Carbon Audits, Integrated Land Management Plans, and specialist advice reports such as nutrient management plans, succession planning, and carbon audit action plans for those wishing to explore further ways of improving business efficiencies. The FAS, however, does not offer grants for soil analysis or animal health and welfare interventions.

Should you wish assistance with any aspect of meeting this conditionality, or have any queries, please do not hesitate to contact Jenni Douglas – jenni.douglas@fbrseed.com.

To stay up to date with the latest grant funding and subsidy scheme announcements, sign up for our newsletter here – http://eepurl.com/hzGntD.

Click here for more information about BPS 2024.