AHW12Manage woodland edges on arable land

What it actually is

One thing before anything else, because it changes who this page is for. This action sits in the SFI 2024 expanded offer, and the SFI 2026 offer that followed it does not include it: GOV.UK have taken the action's own page down, so its wording and rate now stand in the SFI 2024 actions print version, its compatibility lists name no SFI26 actions, and it does not appear in GOV.UK's funding finder listing of the current SFI offer. So if you hold AHW12 in an existing agreement, this page is for you for the rest of that agreement's term; if you are planning a new application, this is not an action you can add to it. Check your own agreement, and treat your agreement documents as the authority on what you hold.

Source: GOV.UK, SFI 2024 actions print version, page 251, and GOV.UK's funding finder listing of the current SFI offer, both checked 23/08/2026.

The action itself: where arable land meets predominantly native or ancient semi-natural woodland, you stop cropping a strip of up to 6 metres average width and let it regenerate naturally, no sowing, into a developing mosaic of scrub and grass. The strip develops within 12 months of the start date and is maintained for the duration. GOV.UK's stated aim is an uncultivated, naturally regenerated strip of scrub and grass mosaic developing between the arable land and the woodland, providing habitat for wildlife.

Source: GOV.UK, SFI 2024 actions print version, page 251, checked 23/08/2026.

What it pays, and what that comes to

The rate is in the panel at the top of this page, paid on the strip's area, its length times its width up to 6 metres, converted to hectares. Multiplied out:

Source: arithmetic on the payment rate shown at the top of this page, which comes from Tilth's copy of the GOV.UK action catalogue and carries its own last-checked date; the area formula from GOV.UK, SFI 2024 actions print version, page 251, checked 23/08/2026. The lengths are illustrations.

Is it worth it on your ground?

For an existing holder the question is settled, so briefly: the strip's establishment cost is nothing, since natural regeneration is the requirement rather than an option, and the ground given up is the field's worst-margin metres, yielding under shade and root pressure that no input ever fixed. Against that, the payment rate stands on ground that was working hardest for its keep. The one real cost is at the far end: three years of developing scrub against a wood is not ground that returns to the plough with a single pass, and what the strip becomes after the agreement is a decision the action leaves entirely with you.

Source: the payment rate at the top of this page; requirements from GOV.UK, SFI 2024 actions print version, page 251, checked 23/08/2026. The judgements are Tilth's own reading rather than scheme guidance.

Does it work, and what makes it work better

This section is what we have found in published sources about the practice this action pays for. It is not scheme guidance, it is not Defra's or the RPA's view, and it adds no requirement beyond what the GOV.UK action page sets out. We have named every source and given the date we checked it. What it means for your ground is your decision.

The evidence file on managed woodland edges is thin on both of the shelves we check. In the Farmland Conservation synopsis, Conservation Evidence have captured no evidence at all for managing woodland edges to benefit farmland wildlife, no studies quantitatively testing it. In the Bird Conservation synopsis, managing woodland edges for birds is in the category Unknown effectiveness (limited evidence), on 3 studies of two experiments, scored 55 per cent for effectiveness, 39 per cent for certainty and 30 per cent for harms. What those few studies found: a UK before-and-after study recorded an increase in the local population of European nightjars following several management interventions of which edge management was one, so the credit cannot be assigned; and a replicated paired-sites experiment in the USA found bird abundances higher and artificial-nest predation lower in woodland edges given border-edge cuts, with scrub and edge nesting species more abundant, but no difference in overall species richness or real nest success.

Source: Conservation Evidence, action 140, Farmland Conservation synopsis, and action 334, Bird Conservation synopsis, both checked 23/08/2026.

Conservation Evidence say themselves that studies are not directly comparable or of equal value, and that study size, design, reported metrics and relevance to your own situation matter more than "simply counting the number of studies that support a particular interpretation". Neither assessed practice is AHW12: nothing here measured a naturally regenerated strip between arable and ancient woodland in England, and the edge ecology argument for the action, the graded structure between field and canopy that hard edges lack, rests on the reasoning GOV.UK's aim implies rather than on scored trials of this design.

Source: the note under key messages on the action pages cited above, checked 23/08/2026. The closing sentence is Tilth's own reading.

What you actually have to do

Allow a strip of up to 6 metres average width per parcel, immediately against the eligible woodland, to regenerate naturally into a developing scrub and grass mosaic, within 12 months of the start date, and maintain it in a way that can reasonably be expected to achieve the aim for the full three years. It is static: the same strip throughout.

Source: GOV.UK, SFI 2024 actions print version, page 251, checked 23/08/2026.

What you cannot do on it

No fertilisers, manures or lime. No pesticides, except herbicides for specific weed control. No supplementary feeding that causes poaching of the woodland edge. No cutting or cultivating that would prevent the mosaic developing.

Source: GOV.UK, SFI 2024 actions print version, page 251, checked 23/08/2026.

Things worth watching

This section is Tilth's own reading of where this action is easy to get wrong. It is not scheme guidance, it is not sourced from Defra or the RPA, and none of it adds a requirement beyond what the GOV.UK action page sets out.

The woodland has to be the right woodland. Predominantly native, or ancient semi-natural. A strip against a conifer block or a young amenity planting is not what the action describes, and the woodland's character is worth being sure of before assuming the edge qualifies.

Natural regeneration means what arrives, arrives. The mosaic assembles itself from the wood's own seed rain, brambles included. The herbicide exception exists for the genuine weed problems, but a strip weeded back to tidiness is a strip prevented from becoming the thing the aim describes.

The feeder placement rule is easy to trip. Supplementary feeding that poaches the woodland edge is prohibited, and game feeders live along wood edges on many arable farms. Where the pheasant feeding sits relative to the entered strip needs deciding deliberately.

Think about the exit before the entry. Three years of willing scrub against a wood is a commitment with an afterlife. Whether the strip eventually rejoins the field, stays as a permanent margin, or is offered to a future scheme is a decision better made while it is still a line on a map.

Keeping the evidence

Also Tilth's own reading. GOV.UK sets the requirements; what follows is a practical suggestion about record keeping.

GOV.UK asks for field operations records with invoices and photographs. For an action whose whole content is regeneration, the record is photographic: the same viewpoints along the strip, a few times a year, showing the mosaic coming. There is pleasure as well as compliance in that sequence; year three against year one is the action working, visibly.

Source: evidence requirements, GOV.UK, SFI 2024 actions print version, page 251, checked 23/08/2026. The suggestion is Tilth's own.

The part only your own ground can answer

Which woodland edges were costing more to crop than they returned is a question your yield maps answer with unusual clarity, since the shade gradient prints straight onto them. For the farms that hold this action, those maps are also the record of what the strip used to cost. Tilth reads yield maps field by field and keeps them with everything else. Request an invite.