AHW3Beetle banks

What it actually is

A bank of soil you throw up across the middle of a field and sow with fine-leaved and tussock-forming grasses, then leave. GOV.UK's stated aim is that there's an in-field raised grassy bank, with tussocky grass allowed to develop. The page sets that in the context of providing habitat for farmland wildlife, protecting soil from erosion and runoff, and supporting an integrated pest management approach.

Source: GOV.UK, AHW3 action page, checked 02/08/2026.

What it pays, and what that comes to

The rate is in the panel at the top of this page, and it is per hectare. A beetle bank is a narrow object, so the cash one bank produces is small even at a high rate:

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. The 400m by 2m bank is an illustration using made-up dimensions, not a scheme figure. GOV.UK sets no width, length or height for a beetle bank. 400 × 2 ÷ 10,000 = 0.08 ha.

Our own reading of that, which adds no requirement beyond what the GOV.UK action page sets out: the rate is per hectare and the object is narrow, so this is a rate to compare against the crop on the ground it actually takes, rather than a figure to read off the headline.

Is it worth it on your ground?

Step one: what the seed costs. Two merchants selling mixes badged for this action. Seed goes in once, at the start of a three-year agreement.

Source: both merchants' own listed prices and stated sowing rates, looked up 02/08/2026. Boston Seeds displays prices with a VAT toggle and £110.00 was read in the inclusive-of-VAT state. The Hurrells per-hectare figure is arithmetic on their acre pack: 2.471 acres per hectare × £55.00. GOV.UK names red fescue, tall fescue, timothy and cocksfoot as examples; the Boston mix as listed contains no cocksfoot or timothy and the Hurrells mix as listed contains all four.

Our own note on that, which adds no requirement beyond what the GOV.UK action page sets out: two mixes sold under the same action code are not the same mix, so the composition is the thing to read rather than the code on the bag.

What we have not priced. Building the ridge. It is earthmoving, it depends entirely on your soil, your kit and how long the bank is, and we have not found a published figure we would put on a page about money. It is a real cost and it is yours to put in. The same goes for the nuisance of farming round an obstacle that is not on a headland.

Step two: what the action is worth after seed. Taking the annualised seed cost off the payment leaves £727.33 a hectare a year on the Boston mix, or £718.70 on the Hurrells one, before any earthworks.

Step three: what the ground would otherwise return. Gross margins per hectare for England, non-organic, in the 2023/24 crop year. Variable costs have already been taken off these figures, so there is nothing further to deduct.

Source: Farm Business Survey, Crop Production in England 2023/24, Rural Business Research, England, non-organic, 2023/24 column, checked 02/08/2026. The winter wheat figures come from a sample of 572 farms.

The bank is static, so it holds the same ground for all three years and the comparison has to be a three-year one. Three rotations, worked from the crop figures above:

Source: arithmetic on the crop gross margins in step three, from the Farm Business Survey, Crop Production in England 2023/24, checked 02/08/2026. These three are illustrations. Work your own out from the same crop figures.

Step four: the gap.

Source: the payment rate at the top of this page less the annualised seed costs in step one, set against the rotation averages in step three. The remaining figures are subtraction. Earthworks are not in this table and are your own figure.

Three things to set against those figures. What follows is Tilth's own reading rather than scheme guidance.

The survey reports one winter wheat figure, not first and second wheat separately. A rotation with two wheats in it carries a second wheat at the same gross margin as the first, which is unlikely to be how it turns out on your ground. We have not found a published split to cite, so we have not applied a discount of our own invention. Read the rotation averages as the generous end for the crop.

It is one year, and not a strong one. The same report's 2022/23 column put winter wheat's gross margin at £1,570 a hectare against the £988 above for 2023/24. A three-year decision resting on a single crop year is a shaky thing, and this particular year was the lower of the two.

The earthworks are missing from the gap. They are a real cost, they land in year one, and we have not priced them. Put your own figure in before you read the gap in step four as a verdict.

Where that leaves it. This is the closest any of these actions comes to matching an arable rotation on money. On the lower rotation figure the gap is under £40 a hectare a year, which on the area a bank actually occupies is a few pounds. The two questions that decide it are whether the field has a wet or awkward line through it that already returns below the field average, and whether you would get value out of the pest-predator side of it, which we are not going to price for you. Against those, put the cost of building the ridge and three years of farming round it.

What you actually have to do

Build a raised earth ridge and sow it with a mix of fine-leaved grasses such as red fescue together with some tussock-forming varieties like tall fescue, timothy and cocksfoot. You can leave gaps of up to around 40m at each end so machinery can get past. Once the grass is established, keep it in a state that could reasonably be expected to meet the aim.

An existing beetle bank counts, provided it meets the requirements and is not already being paid for under another scheme option such as Countryside Stewardship AB3.

Establish the bank within 12 months of the action's start date, then maintain it through each subsequent year. GOV.UK gives no sowing window and no calendar dates for this action.

Source: GOV.UK, AHW3 action page, checked 02/08/2026.

What you cannot do on it

No fertiliser, manure or lime. No pesticides except herbicides to weed wipe or spot treat injurious weeds, invasive non-native species, nettles or bracken. No entering an area that contains a historic or archaeological feature. No double payment on a bank already funded under another scheme option.

Source: GOV.UK, AHW3 action page, checked 02/08/2026.

Where it can go

Agricultural land below the moorland line: arable land used to grow crops, temporary grassland (TG01), or arable land lying fallow (FA01). SSSIs are eligible, but you must give notice to Natural England to get SSSI consent before the Rural Payments Agency can offer you an SFI26 agreement. Land containing a historic or archaeological feature is not eligible at all. Total or part of the parcel. GOV.UK states no area cap and no percentage limit for this action.

Source: GOV.UK, AHW3 action page, checked 02/08/2026.

Our own note on the last of those, which adds no requirement beyond what the GOV.UK action page sets out: the exclusion is worth reading before anything else on this action, because building a bank means moving earth.

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 bag and the requirement are two different things. GOV.UK names four grasses as examples and requires a mixture of fine-leaved grasses together with some tussock-forming varieties. Merchants sell mixes under the AHW3 code that differ in composition, including at least one with no tussock-forming cocksfoot or timothy in it. Reading the species list on the bag against the wording of the action is a five-minute job.

The historic feature rule is a hard exclusion, not a caution. On AHW7 and CIPM4, historic and archaeological features come with a HEFER requirement you can work through. On this one GOV.UK says you must not enter any area containing such a feature. Since the action is moving earth, it is worth knowing what your HEFER says before the digger arrives rather than after.

Static means static. The bank stays in the same place for all three years, which is different from the rotational actions. Wherever you put it, you are farming around it until the agreement ends.

No fertiliser means the bank, not the field. The prohibition attaches to the area entered into the action. That is a simple thing to say and a less simple thing to do with a spreader running across a field with a ridge through the middle of it.

GOV.UK sets no dimensions. No width, no height, no minimum length. That means the area you claim is the area you actually build, and the only person who can measure that is you.

The merchant prices above were read inclusive of VAT. Merchant sites can display either basis, and a quote you are given may be on the other one. Worth settling before the figures go into a budget.

Keeping the evidence

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

The action page says to keep evidence of what you have done, and gives field operations at a land parcel level with their invoices, plus photographs or other documentation, as the examples. For a beetle bank that suggests three things worth having: the seed invoice with the mix composition on it, the date and extent of the earthworks, and photographs of the bank taken more than once, since the point of the action is that tussocky grass develops over time and a single photograph on the day it was sown shows bare soil.

The area is the other one. Because there is no prescribed width, the claimed area rests entirely on your own measurement, so a record of how you measured it is worth as much as the measurement.

The part only your own ground can answer

The gap above is small enough that the line you pick decides it, and what that line returns in cropping is not a number any national survey holds. Your own yield maps do. Tilth keeps them alongside the boundaries and lets you hold the bank as a mapped feature with its own measured area. Request an invite.