Farmers can use a new app to assess the condition of hedgerows on their land to satisfy new Sustainable Farming Initiative (SFI) scheme requirements.
The new Land App can be used to assess the condition of hedgerows to satisfy the SFI's hedgerow assessment action (CHRW1).
It has been launched in collaboration between wildlife charity the People’s Trust for Endangered Species (PTES) and cloud-based mapping platform, Land App.
The SFI hedgerow assessment action is a new approach from the government and is the first time farmers are paid - £5 per 100 metres per side per year - to undertake a hedgerow health-check of this kind.
To do this, farmers in England can now use the Healthy Hedgerows survey on the Land App, which is based on PTES’ original survey recommended by Defra as the go-to tool for recording SFI hedgerow actions.
By answering six questions in as little as two minutes, the app records a hedge’s condition. It also allows users to create the written records needed to satisfy the Rural Payments Agency (RPA) when required.
Once the survey is completed through the app, standard or professional users can get free management advice from PTES.
This might be highlighting which hedges should be prioritised for rejuvenation, or which might be best suited to trimming incrementally higher and wider.
Dan Geerah, director of growth for the Land App said: “We know our users want a straightforward and efficient way to satisfy their SFI hedgerow actions, and the PTES survey method is the Defra recognised way of achieving it.
"We have made a few tweaks to make the functionality even easier, such as the ability to copy hedges from existing SFI plans to the Healthy Hedgerows survey template, rather than starting from scratch.
"There are also step-by-step instructions on how to complete the survey which we hope will be valued by our user base.”
