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Roll out of a key element of the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs Flagship Sustainable Agriculture Programme will now proceed after the NI Assembly supported regulations enabling the introduction of the new Farm Sustainability Payment.

Farm Sustainability Payment Scheme (Eligibility etc) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2025 will provide DAERA with the legal powers to introduce the Farm Sustainability Payment (FSP) from 1 January 2026.

Thanking Assembly Members and the Committee for Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs for their input, DAERA Minister Andrew Muir said: “The regulations passed by the Assembly are a major and positive development for farming in Northern Ireland supporting a thriving, resilient and environmentally sustainable future for farming with the new Farm Sustainability Payment to now open, as planned, on 2 March 2026.

“This will help deliver the Sustainable Agriculture Programme which contains a suite of packages and is supported from wider dedicated funding of £332.5million per annum for Agriculture, Agri-Environment, Fisheries and Rural Development.”

Northern Ireland is the only part of the UK where earmarking of this funding was secured for this and future years following removal of ring-fencing by UK Government at the end of the last financial year.

The phased introduction of proportionate and pragmatic conditionalities associated with the Farm Sustainability Payment will also help enable a wide range of ground-breaking and positive interventions such as the Soil Nutrient Health Scheme and the Bovine Genetics Project.

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