Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ first Spending Review has landed, and while the funding outlook for Defra isn’t catastrophic, it’s far from simple.
On paper, there’s £2.7bn a year for sustainable farming and nature recovery between 2026 and 2029. That includes £2.3bn for the Farming and Countryside Programme and £400m for additional nature schemes. It sounds like good news.
But if you’re a land agent advising clients on schemes like the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) or Countryside Stewardship, the real question is this: What does it mean for the people you represent, and what’s your next move?
At JustFarm, we think this is less about celebration and more about strategic preparation.
🧾 Funding Survives — But Pressure is Building
The top-line funding figures might offer relief, but they’re still slightly down in real terms. Strutt & Parker estimates a 4% cut once inflation is factored in. And crucially, we still don’t have clarity on how the money will be split between the SFI, CSS, Landscape Recovery, or technology schemes.
This is the kind of ambiguity that puts land agents in a tough spot, expected to give confident advice while navigating uncertainty on every front.
The message from policymakers may be: “The money’s there.”
- But the reality on the ground is: “The demands are going up.”
🧠 Why Land Agents Must Lead on Clarity
The role of a land agent has shifted. You’re no longer just helping with applications, you're becoming your clients' compliance strategist, environmental advisor, and risk manager.
In this context, compliance isn’t just a box-ticking exercise. It’s how you:
- De-risk your advisory work
- Demonstrate ongoing value
- Ensure your clients retain their payments
- Build resilience in the face of policy shifts
That’s a lot to manage, especially across multiple holdings, schemes, and deadlines.
✅ How JustFarm Helps Land Agents Stay Ahead
When funding tightens and reporting expectations increase, the best defence is a proactive, organised record-keeping system.
JustFarm gives land agents the tools to:
- Standardise compliance tracking across all clients
- Track actions and monitor deadlines per farm or scheme
- Store and tag evidence (photos, documents, notes) in one place
- Export audit-ready reports at the touch of a button
- Collaborate across teams without endless email chains
- Reduce liability by proving that requirements have been met, clearly and consistently
📉 Why Waiting Isn’t an Option
The Spending Review didn’t bring a funding cliff. But it did reinforce a long-standing truth: environmental schemes will always be subject to political pressure.
That means you can’t rely on DEFRA to make things simpler, you need your own systems to handle complexity.
If you wait for every detail to land before acting, you’ll be reacting — not leading.
👥 Our Take
At JustFarm, we’re already hearing from land agents who want to tighten up compliance management across their portfolios. They’re done with spreadsheets, emails, and folders scattered across drives. They want clarity, structure, and security, before audit season arrives.
You don’t need to control the budget. You need to control the records.
Get ahead of the next scheme update — and show clients you’re more than just a middleman.
- Start using JustFarm and bring clarity to compliance at scale.