A CORNISH MP has described a government funding scheme for farmers as ‘an absolute mess’.

The Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) is a government scheme that pays farmers to adopt and maintain practical actions that improve soil health, biodiversity, water quality, air quality, and resilience to climate change.

At around 10am on Tuesday, September 22, the second round of funding was opened, with around £253-million up for grabs for the nations farmers, however, the scheme has been described as a ‘mess’ by some, after funds were completely claimed by around 3.50pm, with the next round of funding not expected until 2027 - leaving some worse off than expected.

North Cornwall’s MP, Ben Maguire said: “Yesterday's SFI launch was an absolute mess, and North Cornwall farmers are now paying the price for it.

“The scheme opened at 10.17am and the entire Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) budget was gone within six hours, half of it committed in barely three hours.

“Farmers and agents spent weeks preparing carefully thought-out applications, only for many to be let down by an online system that couldn't even process them properly.

“This government doesn’t understand that busy farmers, out in their fields all day, cannot sit down for hours and hours to drown in red tape - or have the time to apply within the first few seconds of an application window to receive funding they absolutely rely on.”

The window was described as chaos, with some farmers being left ‘distraught’ and ‘angry’ as a result.

Following the issues, the Liberal Democrat MP has written to the Farming Minister with his Lib Dem colleagues to ‘demand answers’.

In a post about the situation, Mr Maguire said: “I cannot overstate how many distraught and angry farmers contacted me this week after the government’s complete mess over payments to family farms.

“Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) payments are relied on by so many of North Cornwall’s farming families, some literally facing the existential threat of survival without them. This week, the new funding round window opened - but despite DEFRA saying the system had been overhauled from the complicated and outdated system the Tories left them with…

“The entire fund was gone within just six hours.

“The next funding round won’t be until 2027, and this was the first fund that farmers could apply for since it was closed by the government back in March 2025.

“Farmers are outraged, scared, and worried about the futures of their family farms - and I am too. That’s why I’ve urgently written to the Farming Minister with my Liberal Democrat colleagues to demand answers on this absolute mess.”

In the letter, MP’s state that the system is ‘not a fair or credible way to distribute vital public funding’, and the situation has ‘reduced a scheme meant to reward good farming practice to little more than a lottery - decided not by which farm businesses are best placed to deliver food security, environmental improvement and value for the taxpayer, but by who could click fastest.’