Date published:
DAERA Minister Andrew Muir has launched the first edition of the Sustainable Agriculture Programme (SAP) newsletter, providing farm businesses across Northern Ireland with a clear overview of new and emerging support under the Programme.
Launching the newsletter, Minister Muir said: “The Sustainable Agriculture Programme is about investing in practical, targeted support that helps farmers enhance productivity, build resilience and improve environmental sustainability ensuring a thriving and profitable future for agri-food in a challenging and changing operating environment. This newsletter is an important part of how we will keep farm businesses informed, engaged and supported as these schemes roll out.”
The newsletter highlights how SAP is delivering a coherent package of support built around four key goals of:
- improving environmental sustainability
- enhancing productivity
- building stronger resilience
- ensuring an effective functioning supply chain
SAP is providing over £330 million in support each year to help farm businesses improve efficiency while delivering tangible environmental gains.
A featured article focuses on the Farm Sustainability Payment Scheme, which introduces several key changes in 2026. These changes are designed to strike a balance between financial support and encouraging farm businesses to strengthen business resilience, manage risk more effectively and adopt more sustainable farming practices.
SAP brings together a wide range of schemes, including direct payments, data-driven tools, and advice, training and innovation programmes. This integrated approach is designed to support good decision‑making, provide flexibility and help farm businesses adapt and thrive over the long term.
Several SAP schemes are already delivering clear benefits. In the livestock sector, the Beef Sustainability Package comprised of the Beef Carbon Reduction Scheme (BCR), and the Suckler Cow Scheme are supporting farmers to improve productivity and profitability while reducing Greenhouse Gas emissions from beef production. Over the first two years of the BCR Scheme:
- More than 8,000 eligible farm businesses have participated
- With over £39 million paid, delivering Greenhouse Gas emission reductions of 43 kilotonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent and reduced ammonia emissions of 178 tonnes.
This early success demonstrates how relatively small changes, such as reducing age at slaughter can deliver meaningful farm efficiency, financial and environmental benefits.
The roll out of the Farming with Nature Package continues to be a priority within SAP with the aim of scaling up nature friendly farming while fairly rewarding farm businesses for delivering environmental improvements alongside food production.
Strand one, the Farming with Nature Transition Scheme, has already seen strong uptake, reflecting the sector’s commitment to biodiversity and climate action. Supported actions will help create new habitats, protect watercourses, strengthen green infrastructure and contribute to carbon sequestration on farms. Further strands are planned for launch later this year.
Knowledge transfer remains a cornerstone of the SAP delivery. The Farming for Sustainability programme has two strands, the first focuses on knowledge and learning, with expanded access to training, benchmarking and peer learning to support more productive and environmentally sustainable farm businesses. The innovation strand is helping to identify smart, sustainable technologies and practices, and supporting farmers to adopt them on their own farms.
Farmers can learn more about how the Sustainable Agriculture Programme can support their business by reading the newsletter and visiting the SAP webpages on the DAERA website at: Sustainable Agriculture Programme.
Notes to editors:
- The Sustainable Agriculture Programme is DAERA’s overarching framework for supporting a more sustainable, productive and resilient farming sector in Northern Ireland. It aligns environmental and climate ambition with practical support for the agri‑food sector, which remains economically and socially significant.
- SAP has been developed through extensive engagement with stakeholders, including the Agricultural Policy Stakeholder Group, helping to ensure the Programme reflects sector needs and is grounded in practical delivery.
- The first edition of the SAP Newsletter has been issued in hard copy to farm businesses across Northern Ireland, providing a clear reference source to new and evolving schemes and changes being introduced from 2026. Future editions will be issued digitally, in line with NICS Digital Strategy.
- Further information on the SAP is available at: Sustainable Agriculture Programme.
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- All media queries should be directed to the DAERA Press Office: pressoffice.group@daera-ni.gov.uk or telephone: 028 9016 3460.
- The Executive Information Service operates an out of hours’ service for media enquiries only between 1800hrs and 0800hrs Monday to Friday and at weekends and public holidays. The duty press officer can be contacted on 028 9037 8110.
