…a blog written by Buglife’s Life on the Edge Conservation Officer, Sam Skevington
England’s species-rich grasslands are among our most precious and imperilled habitats. Once stretching across vast swathes of the countryside, 97% of these grasslands have been lost since the Second World War. These meadows and pastures are lifelines for pollinators, other insects, fungi, birds and mammals, and central to meeting the Government’s commitment to protecting 30% of land for nature by 2030.
Species-rich grassland can be a valuable asset to a farm business as their varied species ensure livestock have access to a plethora of micronutrients and medicinal plants. The diverse invertebrate fauna associated with species-rich grasslands further reduce disease risk through integrated pest management, as many predatory insects such as wasps and robberflies suppress livestock pests. Farms can also utilise their species-rich grasslands as part of on farm diversification with wildflower-rich spaces making great attractions for rural tourism.
Nevertheless, the possible reduction in feed value from moving away from fast growing grass crops is often perceived as too risky, and species-rich grasslands are neither easy nor cheap to manage well. Traditional hay cuts, low-input grazing, scrub control, and careful stewardship all take time, skills, and investment. For landowners, participation in agri-environment schemes has been essential to making the move into this type of management financially viable.
The Sustainable Farming Initiative
When the Department for the Environment Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) announced the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) and the inclusion of the option GRH6: Manage priority habitat species-rich grassland in 2024, it was a huge win for nature restoration as it provided a realistic, accessible pathway for landowners to be rewarded for creating and maintaining these priority habitats.
With the removal of GRH6 in SFI 2026, landowners seeking meaningful financial support for species-rich grassland management must now apply through Countryside Stewardship Higher Tier schemes administered by Natural England.
In principle, that sounds reasonable. In practice, it presents a major obstacle.
What do these changes mean in reality?
Higher Tier is already severely constrained by overdemand. There are simply too few Natural England officers to process the current volume of interest and applications. Introducing further reliance on this route risks creating a substantial bottleneck. For landowners who depend on timely agreements to maintain a stable living wage, this uncertainty can be the straw that breaks the camel’s back, resulting in the loss of opportunities for the large-scale habitat creation and restoration required to arrest the decline in our insect populations.
If managing species-rich grassland is to provide a viable alternative income stream for farmers, it cannot hinge on an overstretched system. So, the removal of GRH6 from SFI 2026 is more than a technical adjustment – it is a profound setback for the restoration and recovery of species-rich grassland and the wildlife it supports.
This change is one of many which combine to provide economic signals to landowners which are deeply concerning for nature recovery. The payment for CSAM3: Herbal Leys has been reduced from £382/ha to £224/ha. While this is a cut, it remains significantly higher than the only remaining relevant SFI option for species-rich grassland: CLIG3: Manage grassland with very low nutrient inputs (£151/ha.)
Herbal leys, especially species-rich herbal leys, can provide soil health and biodiversity benefits compared to intensive rye grass systems. But they are usually temporary and must only contain a minimum of just one grass species, two legume species, and two herb or wildflower species, many of which are short-lived agricultural cultivars. This makes them far from comparable to long-established grasslands. Permanent pastures accumulate complex plant communities, soil structure, fungi and invertebrate assemblages over decades even centuries
This creates a troubling disparity. Even at its reduced rate, CSAM3 is substantially more financially attractive than managing permanent, species-rich pasture under CLIG3.
The result is an unintended but powerful economic incentive to replace permanent pastures and semi-improved species-rich grasslands with herbal leys. However, once lost, permanent pastures cannot simply be recreated in a few years.
So, what is needed for continued nature growth and recovery?
There is an urgent need for a ‘Good quality semi-improved grassland’ payment at a rate that reflects its ecological value and exceeds CSAM3, as well as a reinstatement of GRH6 in future years of SFI. A well devised system of payments could incentivise nature recovery with low-input grassland followed by a ‘Diverse low input grassland’, and finally a species-rich grassland payment with increasing payment rates as milestones are achieved could act like a series of accessible stepping stones. This would ensure there is a clear economic incentive to retain, enhance and buffer these vital habitats rather than convert them. Without this, we risk incentivising habitat simplification at precisely the moment we should be accelerating the protection of diverse habitats to support nature recovery.
Further removals are compounding issues
The removal of the stackable option GRH11: Cattle grazing supplement (non-moorland) adds further pressure. This was stackable, meaning it could be claimed alongside CLIG3, and by doing so, it would improve the financial viability of low-input grassland management.
Well planned conservation grazing with cattle plays a crucial ecological role in the management of species-rich grassland. Compared to sheep, cattle create a more varied sward structure, producing a mosaic of taller and shorter vegetation, open patches, and dung habitats. This structural diversity supports a far wider range of invertebrates, including many threatened species such as the Critically Endangered Devon Red-legged Robberfly (Neomochtherus pallipes) and Hornet Robberfly (Asilus crabroniformis).
By removing the supplement that recognised and supported cattle grazing, the scheme has weakened incentives for precisely the type of management that underpins grassland biodiversity. Over time, this could result in more uniform swards, reduced microhabitat diversity, and declining invertebrate populations, the very opposite of what is needed to recover nature.
Working together to meet ambitious targets
Non-governmental organisations (NGOs), such as Buglife, work closely with farmers and landowners to facilitate habitat creation and restoration at scale. Our projects are designed to align with national ambitions, including the UK Government’s commitment to protect 30% of land and sea for nature by 2030.
Within Buglife and South Devon National Landscape’s Life on the Edge project, we aim to deliver large scale invertebrate habitat restoration over 675ha of the South Devon coast in line with 30 by 30. We aim to work with every farming landowner between Wembury and Brixham to create a thriving and resilient landscape and rural economy. Our ability to create this belt of wildflower-rich coastal habitats in part depends on helping landowners reach workable funding mechanisms to ensure they are fairly compensated for their efforts to safeguard floral and invertebrate biodiversity.
Within South Devon numerous NGOs, farm clusters, and landscape partnerships were facilitating the transition of diverse grasslands into GRH6 at the time that SFI 2024 was put on pause. Within Life on the Edge alone, at SFI 2024’s cancellation, we were mid-way through creating applications to preserve 21ha of species-rich grassland with GRH6. Since then, we have had interest in GRH6 on a further 68ha. Defra is aiming for approximately 1,200 new Countryside Stewardship Higher Tier (CSHT) agreements nationally by March 2026, and as a project we are in contact with 52 landowners alone, meaning this small strip of South Devon coastline would require 4.3% of national capacity.
At a time when Natural England officer capacity to support Higher Tier applications is already stretched, the inability to outsource grassland creation to NGOs, farmer clusters, and landscape partnerships, creates an enormous bottleneck. It limits our ability to act quickly and decisively at a time when the Government’s own national security assessment found biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse to be an impending threat to national security.
Species-rich grasslands are not easily replaceable. They are beautiful, cultural landscapes, reservoirs of genetic diversity, and strongholds for declining invertebrates. Their restoration is central to reversing biodiversity loss in England, and beyond.
Policy detail matters. Payment rates matter. Administrative capacity matters.
When the economic signals favour habitat replacement over habitat retention, when the most appropriate options are removed, and when the system for accessing meaningful support is constrained, the consequences ripple far beyond individual farms.
If we are serious about halting species declines and meeting 30 by 30, the mechanisms must align with the ambition. We call on the Government to ensure that landowners have streamlined access to the revenue payments and resources required to conserve and enlarge England’s species-rich grasslands for a brighter and more nature rich future.
Main image credit: Bumble in a meadow © Lucia Chmurova