BFS112m to 24m watercourse buffer strip on cultivated land

What it actually is

A grass strip between the crop and the water. It has to be at least 12 metres wide and it is paid up to 24 metres, averaged across each land parcel, running alongside a ditch, pond, river or stream. It stays in grass for the whole agreement and it does not move.

GOV.UK's stated aim is a grass buffer strip on land at risk of soil erosion or surface runoff which is alongside a watercourse or pond and has an intact sward throughout the year, without tracks, compacted areas or poaching. The page gives the purpose as protecting watercourses, reducing the risk of sediment, pesticides and nutrients being carried into them in surface runoff, providing habitat and links between habitats, and supporting an integrated pest management approach where the strip sits close to cropped areas.

There is a gate on the way in that most actions do not have. The land has to be identified by you as being at risk of soil erosion or surface runoff, and you have to keep written evidence that it is.

Source: GOV.UK, BFS1 action page, checked 05/08/2026.

What it pays, and what that comes to

The rate is in the panel at the top of this page. 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 hectarages use the action page's own measurement rule, which is length in metres times width in metres, divided by 10,000. The 1,000 metres is an illustration.

Put the other way round: at 12 metres, a hectare of strip is about 833 metres of watercourse. At 24 metres it is about 417 metres. Most farms find they have far less ditch than they assumed, so it is worth measuring the actual length off the map before working out what this is worth.

Source: arithmetic on the widths given on the GOV.UK BFS1 action page, checked 05/08/2026.

Is it worth it on your ground?

Step one: what it costs to put in. The action lets you establish the strip either by sowing a seed mix or by natural regeneration, so the seed cost is a choice rather than a given.

Source: ProGreen, own listed price and stated sowing rate for a 4/6 metre grass and buffer strip mix, looked up 31/07/2026. Price your own mix. Cultivation, drilling and any early cutting to encourage the grass to tiller are your own costs and are not in this. Natural regeneration, which the GOV.UK action page also permits, carries no seed cost at all.

Step two: 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 agreement runs three years, so the comparison has to run three years too, and that ground will not be in wheat for all three of them. Three rotations, worked from the crop figures above:

Source: arithmetic on the crop gross margins in step two, 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 three: the gap.

Source: the payment rate at the top of this page, less the £38 a hectare a year of seed from step one, set against the rotation averages above. The figures are subtraction. Cultivation and drilling are not in them. If you establish by natural regeneration there is no seed to take off, so each gap above narrows by £38.

So on average arable ground this is short, by somewhere around £95 to £167 a hectare a year if you sow, and £57 to £129 if you let it come back on its own. That is a narrower gap than it looks, because the ground this action goes on is not average ground.

Step four, which is the one that matters here: the gap is not the same at 12 metres as it is at 24.

What follows is Tilth's own reading rather than scheme guidance, and it adds no requirement beyond the GOV.UK action page.

The payment is a flat rate a hectare whatever width you go to. The ground is not flat at all. The twelve metres nearest a ditch is usually the part of the field that already earns least: shaded on one side, turned on and compacted, the last to travel in a wet spring, and the strip an operator is most likely to miss or double. The next twelve metres, the ones you take on to get from the minimum width to the paid maximum, is ordinary field.

So widening the strip doubles the payment and doubles the area, but the second half of that area is worth more as crop than the first half was. The rotation figures above are field averages, which makes them roughly fair for the outer part of a 24 metre strip and probably generous for a 12 metre one.

That is the actual decision on this page. It is not really whether to do BFS1. It is how wide, and the honest answer to that is different on a ditch that runs along a wet shaded northern boundary from a ditch that runs through the middle of your best ground.

Two things to set against the crop figures above. Also Tilth's own reading.

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. Against that stronger year the gaps above widen and the action looks worse.

Where that leaves it. The money is close enough that national averages cannot settle it. On ground that crops like the field average, at the full 24 metres, this does not pay. On a narrow strip beside a ditch that has been costing you money for years, on land you have already judged to be at risk of runoff, it may well. The number that decides it is what that particular field edge yields, and that number is on your farm rather than in a national survey.

What you actually have to do

Establish and maintain a grass strip that is at least 12 metres wide and up to 24 metres wide, on average in each land parcel, alongside a ditch, pond, river or stream, to create a buffer between the edge of the crop or fallow land and the watercourse. It can be more than 24 metres wide, but you will only be paid for the 24 metre width.

You must make sure the grass strip is in addition to any regulatory requirements relating to buffer strips.

Establish the strip within the first 12 months of the action's duration and maintain it through each subsequent year. Once it is established, manage it in a way that can reasonably be expected to achieve the action's aim.

During late summer, after the bird breeding season, cut part of the strip's width next to the edge of the crop or fallow land, along as much of the strip's length as possible.

If the strip is in a flood risk area and a flood risk management authority such as an Internal Drainage Board carries out flood risk management works on it, you must repair any damage as soon as reasonably practicable.

Keep written evidence that the land entered into this action is at risk of soil erosion or surface runoff, and keep evidence of what you have done to complete the action, such as field operations at a land parcel level and associated invoices, photographs and other documentation.

Source: GOV.UK, BFS1 action page, checked 05/08/2026.

What you cannot do on it

On the established grass strip: no livestock access, no regular vehicular access, turning or storage such as storing bales or machinery, no fertilisers or manures, and no pesticides except herbicides used to weed wipe or spot treat injurious weeds, invasive non-native species, nettles or bracken.

Source: GOV.UK, BFS1 action page, checked 05/08/2026.

Where it can go, and any cap

Agricultural land below the moorland line, identified by you as being at risk of soil erosion or surface runoff, alongside a ditch, pond, river or stream. The eligible land types are arable land used to grow crops and temporary grassland and arable land lying fallow, all with an arable land cover. It can also go on eligible land in a flood risk area.

The action is static, so it stays in the same place each year of the agreement.

You can maintain an existing grass strip and be paid for it, provided it meets the action's requirements and is not already being paid for under another environmental land management scheme option.

Source: GOV.UK, BFS1 action page, checked 05/08/2026.

BFS1 is not one of the limited area actions under SFI26, so the 25 per cent of total agricultural area rule that applies to actions like CAHL2 and AHW9 does not apply to it. In practice the ceiling on this action is the length of watercourse you have.

Source: GOV.UK, SFI26 scheme rules and guidance, section 4.5, checked 05/08/2026.

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.

Find out what you are already obliged to leave before you measure anything. The action page says in plain terms that the grass strip must be in addition to any regulatory requirements relating to buffer strips. Whatever width you are already required to keep clear beside that watercourse is not what this pays for, and the paid strip sits on top of it. That changes the arithmetic at the front of the job rather than at the end of it, so it is worth settling before you decide a width.

The 12 metre minimum is a real threshold, not a starting suggestion. Other buffer strip actions begin at four metres. This one does not exist below twelve. If your ditch sides will not carry twelve metres on average across the parcel, this is not the action for that ground.

The width is an average across the land parcel. That helps where a boundary wanders, and it also means a stretch that narrows is only offset by a wider stretch somewhere else in the same parcel. Measure the whole parcel, not the best bit and not the worst.

At 24 metres you have given away the headland, not the margin. The prohibition on regular vehicular access, turning and storage applies across the whole strip. A four metre margin and a twenty-four metre one are very different propositions when the sprayer needs somewhere to turn. Work out where the machinery goes before you commit a width, because the answer is much harder to change afterwards.

It is static. There is no moving it for year two if the cropping plan changes. Whatever you pick sits there for the length of the agreement.

The flood risk clause has no number attached to it. If your ditch is under a drainage board and they come and do works on the strip, the repair is yours and it has to happen as soon as reasonably practicable. On a lot of low-lying arable ground that is not a remote possibility. There is no way to put a cost on it in advance, which is exactly why it is worth knowing about in advance.

The risk judgement is yours to make and yours to keep. The land has to be identified by you as at risk of soil erosion or surface runoff, and you have to hold written evidence of that. It is made before the agreement starts and it has to still be findable at the end of it.

Natural regeneration is cheaper on paper and slower in practice. It costs nothing in seed, but the strip still has to be established inside twelve months and still has to hold an intact sward with no tracks or bare patches. On clean, well-structured ground that may come right on its own. On a compacted ditch side it may not. The saving is £38 a hectare a year, which is not much against the cost of getting it wrong.

Keeping the evidence

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

This action asks for two different kinds of record, and they are made at different times.

The first is the evidence that the land was at risk of soil erosion or surface runoff. That is a judgement made before you apply, and there is no form for it. Whatever you looked at when you made it, the wet corners, the silt at the ditch bottom, the photographs from a bad autumn, the slope, is worth writing down at the time with a date on it. Three years later nobody remembers why a particular field edge was chosen.

The second is the ordinary record of doing the work. GOV.UK's own examples are field operations at land parcel level with their associated invoices, and photographs or other documentation. For this action that means the establishment method and date, the seed invoice if you sowed, the date of the late summer cut each year, and photographs of the strip through the year showing an intact sward.

The measurement is the third thing to get right, because the payment comes straight out of length times width, and the width is an average.

Tilth measures the strip off the field boundary you have already drawn, holds the establishment and cutting records against it, and keeps the risk note and its photographs with the same parcel rather than in a different folder.

The part only your own ground can answer

This page has argued itself down to one question, and it is a question about width. Twelve metres of ditch side and twenty-four metres of ditch side pay the same per hectare and cost you very different amounts of crop, and nothing published anywhere will tell you what those particular metres return, because national gross margins are field averages and this is a decision about field edges. If your fields, your yield maps and your NDVI history are in one place, you can look at that edge and answer it for yourself. Request an invite.