GRH12Manage rough grassland for upland breeding waders (instead of GRH1: Manage rough grazing for birds which was available in the SFI24 offer)

What it actually is

A standalone action for the rough, damp grassland of the upland fringe, run for the waders that nest in it: lapwing, snipe, redshank and curlew. GOV.UK's stated aim is ground where those birds can nest and raise chicks, which means little livestock disturbance in the breeding season, a sward of varied heights, damp ground and wet features kept, and rushes, scrub and bracken held back. The requirements follow that shape: stocking no higher than 0.6 grazing livestock units per hectare through the upland wader breeding season, mid-March to late July; grazing after the season heavy enough to take the year's grass growth off and leave the sward right for the next spring; dense hard and soft rushes managed into scattered patches, their cover held to around 20 per cent of the parcel; scrub and bracken kept minimal; and monthly stocking records kept, parcel by parcel.

Source: GOV.UK, GRH12 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. 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 12 hectares is an illustration.

Is it worth it on your ground?

Step one: what the ground was earning. This action lives on Less Favoured Area rough grazing, which is some of the least profitable ground in England by any published measure. Nothing is reseeded, fertilised or cut for crop on it anyway in most cases, so unlike the arable actions there is no gross margin table to set the rate against; the honest comparison is with the grazing the stocking cap costs you.

Step two: what the cap costs. 0.6 livestock units per hectare from mid-March to late July is real grazing on decent ground and close to normal practice on poor. Where your spring stocking already sits under the cap, the action pays for what the ground was doing; where the field carries more, the displaced grazing has to go somewhere and that somewhere is your cost.

Step three: the work. Rush topping outside the breeding season, on ground that grows rushes because it is wet, plus the discipline of monthly stocking records. Against a per-hectare rate that outruns most rough grazing returns, the sums lean the action's way on the kind of field it was written for, and the kind of field it was written for is the one that already has curlew calling over it.

Source: the payment rate at the top of this page; requirements from GOV.UK, GRH12 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.

There is no graded assessment of this action's whole package, and the nearest named practice comes back empty: Conservation Evidence have captured no evidence for maintaining rush pastures, no studies quantitatively testing it. What the evidence base does carry is the package's parts, assessed separately.

The parts, scored. Keeping ground wet is the strongest: raising water levels in ditches or grassland is graded Likely to be beneficial on 13 studies, scored 100 per cent for effectiveness and 55 for certainty, with seven studies from Denmark, the Netherlands and the UK associating higher water with increased bird numbers, breeding bird numbers, wet-ground plants and invertebrate food, against a net loss of plant species in two studies and no effect on lapwing foraging rate in one. This action does not ask you to raise water, but its ban on drainage works is the same lever held rather than pulled. Delaying grazing and mowing, the closed-season logic, is Likely to be beneficial on 15 studies, 60 per cent effectiveness, 45 certainty, with increased breeding wader densities among the reported effects. And reduced grazing intensity judged on birds alone is Likely to be beneficial on 12 studies, scored 46 per cent effectiveness and 55 certainty, the most modest of the three.

Source: Conservation Evidence, actions 91, 121 and 131, Farmland Conservation synopsis, and action 220, Bird Conservation synopsis, all 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". Nothing above measured GRH12 itself, and the composite nature of the action means the composite nature of the evidence is the honest position: each dial it turns has some support, the whole machine is untested.

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

Keep stocking at or below 0.6 grazing livestock units per hectare through the breeding season, mid-March to late July, and keep monthly stocking records per parcel throughout. After the season, graze so the year's growth comes off and the sward is left in suitable condition. Manage dense rushes into distributed patches with cover around 20 per cent of the parcel or less, and keep scrub and bracken cover minimal, cutting only outside the breeding season. Ponds, streams, bog and bracken ground can sit inside the entered area where the aim can still be met. Static: the same parcels for all three years.

Source: GOV.UK, GRH12 action page, checked 23/08/2026.

What you cannot do on it

No cutting of the grassland except to manage rushes, scrub or bracken outside the breeding season. No machinery on the parcel during the breeding season, beyond driving the edges and tracks to check stock. No fertilisers, manures, digestate or industrial by-products. No pesticides, except herbicides for injurious weeds, invasive non-native species or nettles. No drainage works that take water off the ground. No feeding except mineral licks, with hay or haylage allowed only in extreme weather, snow or hard frost standing two days or more, and never in troughs on historic features, steep slopes or footpaths.

Source: GOV.UK, GRH12 action page, checked 23/08/2026.

Where it can go

Permanent grassland with the PG01 land use code, in a Less Favoured Area below the moorland line, parcels of at least 2 hectares. No supplemental action can be applied for with this one. GOV.UK's page carries a correction dated 17/06/2026 saying SPM5 cannot be applied for with this base action, and the cattle and pony supplements UPL5 and UPL6 attach only to the moorland grazing actions UPL1, UPL2 and UPL3.

Source: GOV.UK, GRH12, UPL5 and UPL6 action pages, 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 monthly stocking record is the backbone requirement. Not annual, monthly, per parcel, and the 0.6 units per hectare cap is checked against it. Work out what 0.6 units means in your own stock classes before the season, because the arithmetic of ewes with lambs at foot in April is exactly the kind that goes wrong in the head.

The autumn grazing is as required as the spring restraint. Taking the year's growth off after the season is a must-do, not an option. A field shut up in spring and then forgotten fails the action from the other end, growing into the rank sward the waders cannot use next year.

Rush patches are a percentage and a pattern. Around 20 per cent cover, in distributed patches, which is a mosaic, not a margin note. The rush-topping window is the non-breeding half of the year, on ground that may be wettest exactly then; the practical window is narrower than the permitted one.

The feeding rules are stricter than they look. Mineral licks only, with the hay exception needing two days of snow or hard frost first. Winter feeding patterns that wander onto the entered parcels are a compliance problem before they are a habitat one.

Two hectares is the floor, the birds set their own. Waders favour open ground with long sightlines, and a small parcel walled by trees may meet every requirement and hold no birds. Where the curlew already are is the best siting advice available, and it is yours, not ours.

Keeping the evidence

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

The stocking record is required monthly, so build it as a habit: stock class, head count, dates on and off, parcel by parcel. Field operations and invoices cover the rush and bracken work, and photographs carry the rest, the patchy rushes, the wet flashes still wet, the sward at season's end. A note of wader sightings costs nothing and, over three years, becomes the record that the action is doing what it is for.

Source: evidence requirements, GOV.UK, GRH12 action page, checked 23/08/2026. The suggestion is Tilth's own.

The part only your own ground can answer

Whether your rough ground already carries breeding waders, and whether your spring stocking already sits near the cap, decide most of this action before any page is read. Both answers live in your own records, or should: Tilth keeps the stocking log the action demands monthly anyway, against the map, with the sightings pinned where the birds were. Request an invite.