CIPM4No use of insecticide on arable crops and permanent crops

What it actually is

A prohibition rather than an operation. GOV.UK's stated aim is that no plant protection products containing insecticide are applied on an arable crop or permanent crop, and the page sets that in the context of an integrated pest management approach, water and air quality, and biodiversity. You keep cropping the field, you keep everything else the same, and nothing containing an insecticide goes on it.

The prohibition covers insecticide seed dressings, nematicides, acaricides, and other insecticides such as silica insecticides and orange oil. Herbicides, fungicides, plant growth regulators and molluscicides such as slug pellets are all still permitted.

Source: GOV.UK, CIPM4 action page, checked 02/08/2026.

Our own reading of that, which adds no requirement beyond what the GOV.UK action page sets out: there is no seed to buy, no ground taken out and no sward to maintain, which is what makes the money question on this page a different shape from the actions that take ground out of production. And the width of the word insecticide is the detail worth reading twice.

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 100 hectares is an illustration.

Our own reading of that, which adds no requirement beyond what the GOV.UK action page sets out: this is a small rate on a large area rather than a large rate on a small one, so the total depends almost entirely on how much of the farm you are willing to put into it.

Is it worth it on your ground?

Most action guides on this site compare the payment against what a three-year rotation would have returned on the same hectares, because those actions take the ground out of production. This one does not work that way. The crop stays, the field is still drilled and still harvested, and the variable costs on it are spent either way. Nothing comes out of the rotation to do this, and there is nothing to buy in.

So the question turns round. Instead of asking what yield makes the payment worth more than the crop, ask how much yield you can afford to lose before the payment stops covering it. Because the variable costs are spent regardless, the grain you might lose is valued at the full grain price rather than at the margin on it, which makes the sum below the cautious version.

Source: the payment rate 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. Feed wheat at £206.00/t, AHDB Arable Market Report, 27/07/2026, East Anglia delivered, November 2026 delivery. Worked as the rate divided by £206.00. The insecticide and application cost you avoid is not included, because that is your own figure.

Where does that sit? Defra puts the UK wheat yield at 7.2 t/ha in 2025. 218 kg is about three per cent of that. So the framing is: if going without insecticide costs you more than roughly three per cent of the crop, the payment has not covered it. On a field you would not have treated anyway, it costs nothing and the saved product and pass are on top.

Source: yield, Defra, Agriculture in the United Kingdom 2025, Chapter 7, checked 31/07/2026. The percentage is arithmetic on that figure and the one above.

The part the sum leaves out.

This paragraph is Tilth's own reading. It is not scheme guidance and it is not sourced from Defra or the RPA.

The threshold above is a flat figure and the risk behind it is not flat. It depends on the crop, the season and the field. A field you have not had to treat is a different proposition from one you treat routinely, and the payment is the same on both. That is a judgement about your own ground and your own pest pressure, and we have not found published data that would answer it for you.

The pairing worth knowing about. CIPM3, companion crop, is listed as compatible with this action on the same area. The two rates then land on the same hectares while the ground is still growing and selling a cash crop, with the companion seed as the only thing to deduct. Both rates are shown at the top of their own guides.

Source: compatibility, GOV.UK CIPM4 and CIPM3 action pages, checked 02/08/2026, where each lists the other as compatible on the same area.

Our own reading of the pairing, which adds no requirement beyond what either action page sets out: the two point the same way agronomically, since one is about supporting pest predators and the other is about not killing them. Check the land eligibility of both against your own parcels before assuming they can sit together.

What you actually have to do

Do not apply any plant protection product containing insecticide on land entered into the action. GOV.UK includes insecticide seed dressings, nematicides and acaricides, and other insecticides such as silica insecticides and orange oil, in that prohibition. Herbicides, fungicides, plant growth regulators and molluscicides such as slug pellets are permitted.

On arable crops, the action must be done on at least one crop sown during each year of the three-year duration. If there is already a crop in the ground when the action starts, GOV.UK says you must do the action on a crop sown within 12 months of the start date. On permanent crops, the action runs from its start date throughout each of the three years. GOV.UK gives no calendar dates for this action.

Source: GOV.UK, CIPM4 action page, checked 02/08/2026.

Our own reading of that, which adds no requirement beyond what the GOV.UK action page sets out: the timing here is tied to sowings rather than to the calendar, which is a different shape from the actions that have an establishment window in them.

What you cannot do on it

No plant protection product containing insecticide, in any form, including as a seed dressing. Nematicides and acaricides are named as included. So are silica insecticides and orange oil.

Source: GOV.UK, CIPM4 action page, checked 02/08/2026.

Where it can go

Agricultural land below the moorland line. On arable land, land used to grow crops, which for this action excludes temporary grassland, fallow land and maize. On permanent crops, horticultural and non-horticultural, excluding miscanthus. On arable land the action is rotational, so it can move in years two and three; on permanent crops it stays in the same place.

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 with historic or archaeological features needs an SFI HEFER before you do the action.

Source: GOV.UK, CIPM4 action page, checked 02/08/2026.

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.

Seed dressings are in the prohibition, and the decision is made before drilling. This is the one to sit with. Everything else about the action happens in the growing crop, but a dressed seed decision is made in the shed or on the order, potentially months before the parcel is even chosen. Read the seed order alongside the action, not after it.

The prohibition is wider than the word suggests. Nematicides and acaricides are named as included, as are silica insecticides and orange oil. A product bought to deal with a mite or an eelworm may not be filed under insecticide when you think about the field, and GOV.UK has put it there.

It needs a cash crop, and it excludes fallow, temporary grassland and maize. This is not an action you can park on ground that is out of production. At least one cash crop must be sown in each of the three years, so the land has to be cropping for the action to be doing anything.

It is easy to agree to and hard to remember. This action has no operation attached: nothing gets sown, built or spread, so there is no doing of it to remind you that the field is in an agreement. The field looks like any other field.

The person who signs the application may not be the person who makes the spray decision. Where an agronomist, a sprayer operator or a contractor makes that call, and makes it at short notice, whether they know which parcels are in CIPM4 becomes the practical question. That is about how the information travels rather than about the action's requirements.

The rate is small enough that the area does the work. On a handful of hectares the payment barely registers. It earns its place across a lot of ground, or on ground where it costs nothing because the crop was not going to be treated.

Keeping the evidence

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

This is an action where the thing you would need to show is an absence, and there is no invoice for a treatment you did not make. The document that speaks to it is the plant protection product record. Kept at parcel level and running across the whole action period, it shows what did go on the field, which is also what shows the insecticide did not.

The seed side deserves its own thought. Since dressings are inside the prohibition, the seed invoice or delivery note showing what the seed was treated with is doing evidential work that a spray record cannot do, and it is a document that lives in a different place from the spray records.

The practical point about both is that this only works if the records are complete and parcel-level. A record with gaps in it does not demonstrate an absence; it demonstrates a gap. That is a reason to keep it properly across the whole farm rather than just on the parcels in the action.

The part only your own ground can answer

Whether this pays comes down to one thing a national figure cannot tell you, which is what your own insecticide passes have actually been buying you, field by field. Your spray records hold that, if they are kept at parcel level and kept for long enough to compare years. Tilth keeps them there, alongside the seed delivery note and a flag on the parcels that are in an agreement. Request an invite.