Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI): completing your rotational actions declaration 

Some Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) actions are ‘rotational’. This means that, after the first year of your SFI agreement, you can choose to: 

• move the action’s location around your land, or do the action at the same location
• change the area of land entered into the action (subject to the rules which apply to you)
• do the action on the same area

You can move the location of a rotational SFI action to an eligible land parcel that’s linked to your Single Business Identifier (SBI). This can be land that’s not already in your SFI agreement.  

If your SFI agreement includes rotational SFI actions, you need to submit a ‘rotational actions declaration’. This is to tell the Rural Payments Agency (RPA) about the location and area of your rotational SFI actions for the next year of your SFI agreement. You need to do this even if you do not want to make changes to any of these actions.

When to complete your rotational actions declaration

Most rotational SFI actions last for 3 years. You’ll need to complete a rotational actions declaration for these actions towards the end of the first and second years of your SFI agreement. 

The only exception to this is ‘GRH11: Cattle grazing supplement (non-moorland)’ in the SFI 2024 offer, which lasts for 5 years. For this SFI action, you’ll also need to complete a rotational actions declaration towards the end of the third and fourth years of your SFI agreement.

Your rotational actions declaration will be available to complete in the Rural Payments service after you’ve submitted your annual declaration for the previous agreement year. The RPA will let you know when it is available.

You need to complete and submit your rotational actions declaration as soon as it is available. If you do not, the RPA cannot pay the first instalment of your payment for the next agreement year.

How to complete your rotational actions declaration 

When the RPA tells you that your rotational actions declaration is available to complete, sign in to the Rural Payments service. 

From your ‘Business overview’ screen, select either: 

• ‘Sustainable Farming Incentive 2023’ to complete a rotational actions declaration for an SFI 2023 agreement
• ‘Apply for the Expanded Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) Offer’ to complete a rotational actions declaration for an SFI 2024 agreement

Click on ‘Rotational Actions Declaration’. You need to tell  the RPA either: 

• about changes to your rotational actions for the next agreement year
• that you do not wish to make changes to any of your rotational actions

You’ll need to check that the registered details of the land parcel are correct on your digital maps. Read the guidance on how to check your digital maps.

You can only apply a rotational SFI action to a land parcel if the land use you have declared for it:

• is compatible with its registered land cover (shown on your digital maps) – for example, if the land cover is permanent grassland, the land use also needs to be land use code ‘PG01’ (permanent grassland)
• matches the land cover area (in hectares) – for example, if the land cover is 5.00 hectares of permanent grassland, the land use needs to be 5.0000 hectares of PG01

If the land use and land cover do not match, you will see a ‘land use’ error message when you select a land parcel in your rotational actions declaration.

You need to correct this before you can apply a rotational SFI action to that parcel.

To correct land use:

• select ‘Business overview’
• click on ‘Land’ then ‘Update land use’

Use the help screens to take you through the process of adding, removing or changing land use.

If you still get an error message, read the following guidance.

You will see one of 3 land use error messages:

1. ‘There have been no land uses declared on this land parcel for this year’ – you need to add land use codes and areas for each parcel. 
2. ‘Not all of the parcel has had land uses declared against it’ – you need to update the land use areas for each parcel so you have declared land uses for the total field area.
3. ‘Some of the land uses on the parcel are not compatible with the land cover on the parcel’ – you need to check the land covers on your digital maps are correct for the land parcel and update the land uses declared so they are compatible with the land covers.

Changing rotational actions on SSSI land

If you make changes to your rotational SFI actions on land that’s a site of special scientific interest (SSSI), you must give notice to Natural England to get SSSI consent. You must not carry out the rotational actions on this land until you receive SSSI consent.

SFI 2024 agreements with an area limit for rotational actions

If you have an agreement for the ‘restricted’ re-opened SFI 2024 offer, there is a limit to the area you can enter into your rotational SFI actions. You cannot increase the area entered into these actions above the area you entered for the first year of your SFI agreement.

Read the SFI scheme information for the re-opened SFI 2024 offer (section 1.4 ‘Rotational SFI actions’) for more information.

SFI 2023 agreements with action IPM4 (no use of insecticide)

For the SFI 2023 offer, you can only do ‘IPM4: No use of insecticide on arable crops and permanent crops’ on the total available area in a land parcel.

When you complete your rotational actions declaration, you’ll need to change the total available area entered into IPM4 if you want to:

• move its location to a land parcel with a larger or smaller total available area
• leave it at its current location and move an incompatible rotational SFI action into the same land parcel – in this case, you’ll need to reduce the area entered into IPM4 for that land parcel

Read page 15 of the SFI Handbook for the 2023 offer for some examples.

Further information about the rotational actions 

Read the relevant SFI scheme information for your SFI agreement:

• SFI handbook for the SFI 2023 offer, if you have an SFI 2023 agreement
• SFI scheme information for the expanded offer for 2024 (SFI 2024), if you applied for an SFI 2024 agreement by 11 March 2025
• SFI scheme information for the re-opened SFI 2024 offer, if you were eligible to apply for an SFI 2024 agreement during summer 2025