CIGL34m to 12m grass buffer strip on improved grassland

What it actually is

A strip of grass, averaging 4 to 12 metres wide in each parcel, run along the features of an improved grass field: hedgerows, stone walls, woodland edges, ditches, rivers and streams, upstanding historic or archaeological features, and also trackways that channel runoff or fence lines linking wildlife habitat. You establish it within the first 12 months, by sowing or by natural regeneration, and then the job is keeping it whole: GOV.UK's stated aim is an intact grass sward throughout the year, without tracks, compacted areas or poaching, protecting the feature it buffers, providing habitat, and intercepting runoff. You can graze it, so long as the sward stays intact. You cannot cut it for hay or silage, use it for regular vehicular access, turning or storage, or apply fertilisers, manures or pesticides, other than herbicide applied by weed wiping or spot treatment on injurious weeds, invasive non-native species, nettles or bracken.

Source: GOV.UK, CIGL3 action page, 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, worked as length times width divided by 10,000. 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, CIGL3 action page, checked 23/08/2026. The lengths are illustrations.

Is it worth it on your ground?

Step one: what it costs to put in. Possibly nothing: natural regeneration is an allowed establishment route, and the strip of an improved grass field is grass already. A sown strip costs a pass and cheap seed, once. Compaction is worth dealing with before entry rather than after, since a strip that pools water fails the intact-sward test from below.

Step two: what the ground gives up. Less than any arable buffer. The strip can still be grazed, so its keep is not lost; what goes is the fertiliser response on those metres, the silage cut, and the convenience of the headland as a track and turning ground. On a field cut for silage, the strip is the margin the mower now lifts out of; on a purely grazed field, the sacrifice is close to nil.

Step three: where that leaves it. A payment at nearly half the arable buffer's rate, for ground that keeps most of its function. The strips that make sense are the ones along features you were already keeping stock off, or edges the fertiliser spinner never truly reached anyway. The strips that cost you real silage are the ones to think harder about, and the sum is your own yield map of that margin against the rate above.

Source: the payment rate at the top of this page; requirements from GOV.UK, CIGL3 action page, 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 assessed practice is a direct fit for once: Conservation Evidence assess Plant grass buffer strips/margins around arable or pasture fields, and pasture fields are exactly what this action puts strips on.

The graded assessment. Conservation Evidence, based at the Department of Zoology at the University of Cambridge, summarises the published studies behind individual conservation actions and has independent subject experts score each one. This practice comes out in their top category, Beneficial, on 69 studies, with 90 per cent for effectiveness, 65 per cent for certainty, and harms not assessed. Effectiveness scores only the size and direction of the reported effects, and they say themselves it does not consider the quantity or quality of the studies. Certainty is the separate score for how many studies there are, how well built they are and how much ground they cover.

Source: Conservation Evidence, action 246, Plant grass buffer strips/margins around arable or pasture fields, Farmland Conservation synopsis, checked 23/08/2026. Cite as Dicks et al. (2020), Farmland Conservation, pages 283 to 321, in What Works in Conservation 2020, Open Book Publishers.

What the studies found. In brief, because our CAHL3, CAHL4 and BFS1 pages carry the fuller account: nineteen studies from Finland, the Netherlands, Sweden and the UK found grass strips increased arthropod abundance, richness or diversity, nine UK studies found benefits to birds, seven found more plant cover and species, five found benefits to small mammals, against six finding no clear effect on insects, birds or invertebrate pests. Most of that work sits on arable margins rather than grazed grass, which is worth holding onto: the strip on a grass field earns its keep more through the feature it protects and the runoff it stands in front of than through contrast with the field beside it, since grass beside grass is a smaller change than grass beside a cereal.

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".

Source: Conservation Evidence, action 246, key messages and supporting evidence, checked 23/08/2026. The framing sentence about grass beside grass is Tilth's own reading.

What we have not found. Any study measuring CIGL3 itself, or a British field measurement of what a buffer strip on improved grassland intercepts in nutrient or sediment terms, which is part of the action's stated purpose. The runoff case rests on the bluntly physical mechanism and on your own knowledge of where the water goes.

What you actually have to do

Establish the strip within the first 12 months, by seed mix or natural regeneration, averaging at least 4 metres and up to 12 metres wide in each parcel, along the features the page lists. Keep an intact grass sward throughout the year, without tracks, compacted areas or poaching, managed in a way that can reasonably be expected to achieve the aim. Grazing is allowed within that. Keep it at the same location for the full three years. The strip has to be in addition to any regulatory requirement relating to buffer strips, so ground you are already required to keep as a buffer does not count towards it.

Source: GOV.UK, CIGL3 action page, checked 23/08/2026.

What you cannot do on it

No cutting for hay or silage. No regular vehicular access, turning or storage. No fertilisers or manures. No pesticides, except herbicides to spot treat or weed wipe injurious weeds, invasive non-native species, nettles or bracken.

Source: GOV.UK, CIGL3 action page, checked 23/08/2026.

Where it can go

Temporary grassland with the TG01 land use code or improved permanent grassland with PG01, below the moorland line, along the listed features. SSSIs need Natural England's consent before agreement. Land with historic or archaeological features needs an SFI HEFER first, and buffering upstanding historic features is one of the placements the action names. It is static, and payment is capped at 12 metres of width however wide the strip actually is.

Source: GOV.UK, CIGL3 action page, checked 23/08/2026.

What you can stack it with

The same-area list on the GOV.UK page: the agroforestry actions AGF1 and AGF2, the organic actions OFC1, OFC3, OFM1 and OFM4, precision spraying PRF2, and the winter livestock removal action WBD7. Boundaries take the usual four: CHRW2, BND1, BND2 and WBD2, which pairs naturally, since a strip buffering a hedge and a hedge in CHRW2 are two payments on the same edge.

Source: combinations, GOV.UK CIGL3 action page, checked 23/08/2026. The pairing observation is Tilth's own reading.

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.

Poaching is the failure mode. The requirement is an intact sward without poaching, and the strip runs along exactly the places stock gather: the hedge line for shelter, the water for drinking, the gateway corners. Grazing is allowed, but the strip has to come through the winter looking like a sward, and on heavy ground that may mean fencing decisions the payment was never sized for.

The silage mower is the other one. No cutting for hay or silage on the strip means the forage rotation loses those metres. Topping for sward management is a different operation from cutting for crop, and the line between them is what you do with the grass: removing it as forage is what the page prohibits.

The trackway placement is easy to miss. Strips can buffer trackways that channel runoff, which on many grass farms is the single most useful placement on offer: the poached cow track that runs brown in rain is precisely the feature the mechanism wants a strip beside.

Average width is per parcel. At least 4 metres on average in each parcel, paid to a cap of 12. A strip that pinches at gateways can still average right, but the average is the thing to check, and payment never exceeds the 12 metre width however generous the strip.

The word GOV.UK uses is regular. What it prohibits is regular vehicular access, turning or storage, so it is the habitual route that has to move rather than a single crossing to see to a trough. The headland run to the water trough or the ring feeder needs to be somewhere else for three years.

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 or documentation. For a static strip the cheap strong record is photographic: the same few viewpoints, a few times a year, showing an unbroken sward through winter. Where the strip was sown, keep the seed invoice; where it regenerated naturally, a dated photograph of the strip establishing is the record that it happened within the 12 months.

Source: evidence requirements, GOV.UK, CIGL3 action page, checked 23/08/2026. The suggestion is Tilth's own.

The part only your own ground can answer

Which edges of which grass fields give up least and stand in front of most, the track that runs in the wet, the hedge the stock hammer, the ditch that takes the field's water, is knowledge no page can supply. Walk the parcels in the rain and the answer marks itself. Tilth's map is where our farms draw those strips before the application, with the photographs pinned where they were taken. Request an invite.