6.03pm - Monday 10th August 2026 175

Farming Forum members set the questions. The Rural Payments Agency sat down and answered them.

Oliver Munn took over as chief executive of the RPA in January 2026. Julian Mahony is the agency's customer director. We asked TFF members what they wanted put to them, took the strongest questions straight from the thread, and gave them 45 minutes with nothing off the table.

What gets covered:
• SFI 2026, the September window, and whether the money runs out
• Expiring SFI 23 and Countryside Stewardship agreements, and the February 2027 cut off
• Why mapped field areas keep changing, and what it does to your payment
• Farm visits and enforcement, and why the written report turns up weeks later
• Staff numbers, AI inside the RPA, and whether anyone there knows what a cover crop is
• Rural broadband, and what happens if you are not online

Some of the numbers that came out of it. SFI 26 has 71 actions, down from 102 under SFI 24. Window 2 opens in September for all farmers and land managers in England, with any unspent Window 1 money rolled into it and around £240 million in the pot overall. RPA headcount fell by 289 people last year, about 10 per cent. Three quarters of RPA staff now use an AI assistant every month. Over 99 per cent of cattle births and movements are reported digitally, and the paper and telephone routes are staying open for the rest.

CHAPTERS
0:00 "Not the policeman with the clipboard"
0:30 Who is in the room, and why
1:14 Oliver Munn: no farming background, so what is he bringing?
3:26 Will the RPA get more digital, and more AI?
4:13 What a customer director actually does
5:25 Three years from now, what should farmers be saying?
6:41 What should farmers be noticing already?
9:00 YOUR QUESTION: when do the costs and the staff numbers come down?
10:31 Simpler schemes: 71 actions in SFI 26, down from 102
11:13 AI inside the RPA, and farmers using it to pick options
13:18 YOUR QUESTION: why no written summary at the end of a farm visit?
14:00 Why the report takes weeks to arrive
15:21 Clive's own advisory visit
16:26 Carrot rather than stick
17:06 YOUR QUESTION: does anyone at Defra know anything about farming?
18:30 Getting RPA staff out on farm
20:12 YOUR QUESTION: why so many map area checks?
20:42 Why field areas change year on year
23:25 Contours, apps, and why your own mapping does not match
24:35 What happens to the payment when an area changes
25:45 A worked example: woodland inside a herbal ley
26:43 No penalties since 2021, just correction
26:58 YOUR QUESTION: is SFI 26 first come first served?
27:46 Window 1, Window 2 and the £240 million
29:30 Will the agents take all the money?
30:11 Expiring agreements and the February 2027 cut off
34:06 Layered SFI 23 and SFI 24 agreements
36:34 YOUR QUESTION: can we not just have a simpler system?
39:24 Digital by default, and the farmers who are not online
41:10 A capital grant for Starlink?
42:14 Oliver Munn's message to Farming Forum members
44:24 Thanks and close

Interviewed by Clive Bailye for The Farming Forum.

Questions that did not get answered on camera are being answered by the RPA team on the original forum thread.

The Farming Forum: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/rural-payments-agency-q-a.439412/page-3#post-10205284

Direct Driller magazine: https://www.directdriller.com

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