A number of changes will be made to the Farming With Nature (FWN) scheme in 2026, a committee of MLAs has been told.

According to Devina Park from DAERA, the agri environment scheme will be “broadened, strengthened and simplified” for its second year.

There were six actions available under FWN in 2025, namely planting new hedges and trees, 2m and 7m riparian buffers, multi-species cover crops, and winter stubble retention.

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Speaking to Stormont’s agriculture committee last Thursday, Park said a further eight actions will be added to the FWN scheme in 2026.

“These include three arable field margin actions, two herbal ley actions, and three actions to support the ongoing management of hedgerows, farmland trees and 7m riparian buffer strips that were established under the scheme in year one,” she said.

Payments have also been reviewed, with Park stating that the next phase of FWN will include “enhanced payment rates for actions that deliver multiple benefits”.

The minimum annual claim of £2,500 has been removed for the 2026 scheme year, and the maximum claim has been increased from £9,500 to £20,000.

“In addition, a number of simplifications and improvements have been made to the year one environmental action specifications, and improvements have been incorporated into the application process,” Park said.

An example of a change for this year is that all farmers will have the choice of leaving a 2m or 7m riparian buffer strip when fencing off watercourses.

This appears to differ from the first year of FWN, when a 7m wide buffer zone was the only option available for riparian strips along designated watercourses.

Another change from the 2025 FWN scheme is farmers who still have an active agreement under the old Environmental Farming Scheme (EFS) will be able to apply this year.

Manus McHenry from DAERA said EFS participants were not allowed into FWN in 2025 because the department did not have time to develop checks on “double funding”.

“We have checks and inspections in place now that will avoid that,” he said.

Bad weather leads to grant scheme dropouts

There were 876 applications to the FWN scheme in NI last year, which led to 784 applications being approved by DAERA.

However, by the end of the scheme year at 31 March 2026, only 507 claims were submitted by NI farmers which equated to £4.9m of scheme spend.

At Stormont last week, Manus McHenry from DAERA said poor weather conditions throughout the 2025/2026 winter meant many farmers could not get work completed.

He also pointed out that FWN was designed to be flexible so applicants can easily drop or claim for less than they originally applied for.

“The numbers were down from what we had originally proposed and planned, but we hope that those farmers will come back in again in 2026 because they have the flexibility to do that,” McHenry said.