The Rural Payments Agency (RPA) paid out around 107,000 eligible claims in 2022 totalling £1 billion, on top of £679 million that was issued for Basic Payment Scheme (BPS) advances earlier in the summer of 2022.

This total represents 98.4% of eligible claims to the BPS, which is up slightly from 98.3% in 2021; 73.6% of claims to the Countryside Stewardship Scheme (CS) revenue (up from 61.9%); and 76.5% of claims to the Environmental Stewardship Scheme (ES) (up from 64.8%) in 2022.

The agency said that these payments help farmers "deliver food security through sustainable food production alongside environmental actions to enhance and support nature".

RPA chief executive, Paul Caldwell, said: “2022 was a challenging year for farmers, and we have focused on processing applications, claims and getting payments into bank accounts which I hope has helped farmers deal with the issues they have faced.

“We know how important our work is to rural communities, so we’ll continue to work hard to help where we can over the next 12 months.”

2022 improvements

The RPA also highlighted the new schemes, services and improvements that were introduced to help the agricultural sector in 2022 and the knock-on effects they would have for 2023:

From January 1, 2023, the RPA said all stewardship agreements have been moved to domestic terms and conditions and farmers with these agreements will "benefit from the new approach".