FARMERS across West Somerset and Exmoor were this week shut out of a flagship Government farm funding scheme after it ran out of money in less than six hours.

The Government’s main environmental payment scheme opened on Tuesday (September 22) and closed on the same day.

Exmoor farmer and Conservative party campaigner James Wright warned it had left farming families ‘without a lifeline’.

The Government’s Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) fund was introduced to replace the old Basic Payment Scheme (BPS), paying farmers for work such as improving soils, protecting waterways, and creating space for wildlife.

Tuesday’s opening of a second window for applications closed once the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) had enough applications to allocate the full £233 million budget.

Mr Wright, who farms beef and sheep on Exmoor, said half of the funding pot had gone within about three hours of the scheme opening.

He said there were also reports of farmers struggling to log in to the Rural Payments Agency website because of poor connectivity in rural areas.

Mr Wright said as BPS had been phased out, the new fund had become central to farm incomes.

However, Defra’s own figures showed its total farming budget spend had fallen from £2.614 billion in 2024-25 to £2.322 billion in 2025-26.

The previous version of SFI was closed suddenly in March of last year, and to stretch this year’s money, Defra removed the management payment, scrapped planning actions, and cut rates for popular actions.

One industry estimate suggested roughly two-thirds of potential applicants could miss out.

Mr Wright said the timing was particularly difficult because a number of existing Countryside Stewardship mid-tier agreements were due to expire at the end of this year.

He said the NFU had also called on Defra to provide further details on next year’s SFI and access to the Countryside Stewardship higher tier scheme, the fund which supports moorland and habitat management on Exmoor.

Mr Wright said: “SFI was sold to farmers as the scheme that would replace the Basic Payment, open to every farmer willing to do right by their land.

“Under Labour, it has become a lottery.

“On Exmoor, where broadband is patchy and farmers were out with their stock in the morning, they will have missed the window.

“Labour has taken hundreds of millions out of the farming budget, cut payment rates, and scrapped the management payment, then acts surprised when the money runs out before lunch.

“Families here in West Somerset, many coming off agreements that end this year, now face losing income they needed.”

Countryside Alliance chief executive Tim Bonner said: “Farmers should not have to race against the clock to secure the support they need to run their businesses and deliver the environmental outcomes the Government is asking of them.

“Farmers need certainty, not a scramble for funding.

“They need to know if they are being asked to change the way they manage their land, there will be a fair and reliable system to support them.”