To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs to detail (i) the number of hectares; and (ii) the percentage of agricultural land, currently in the Environmental Farming Scheme.

The Environmental Farming Scheme (EFS) is a voluntary agri-environment scheme that supports farmers and land managers to carry out environmentally beneficial farming practices on agricultural land. Each agreement lasts for 5 years.

EFS is made up of three levels - Wider, Higher and Group.

EFS differs from previous agri-environment Schemes in that it is not a whole farm scheme.

For EFS Wider, applicants select which options and fields to enter the scheme.

For EFS Higher, only those fields identified as designated sites or areas of priority habitat may be considered for entry.

The June 2024 Agricultural Census calculated the total hectares of agricultural land within Northern Ireland at 1,040,392 hectares. Currently, over 55,700* hectares of agricultural land are part of an active EFS agreement. This is equivalent to 5.4% of all agricultural land within Northern Ireland.

*Further EFS Tranche 8 offers of agreement will issue in early February 2025 containing approximately 5,550 ha of agricultural land, which will add an additional 0.5% of all agricultural land within Northern Ireland to the above figures.