SPM3Supplement: Keep native breeds on grazed habitats (more than 80%)

What it actually is

A supplement paid for who does the grazing. On land entered into a qualifying base action, the low-input grassland action CLIG3, the agroforestry pair, or the organic grassland actions, more than 80 per cent of the total grazing livestock units in each grazing season must be animals of breeds in the at-risk category of the UK native breeds support list, either pedigree rare native breeds or heritage semi-feral breeds, registered in recognised breeding books. The paperwork is part of the action: monthly grazing records at parcel level, each eligible animal's individual identification number, and its pedigree registration or birth notification showing provenance. GOV.UK's stated aim is plain: maintain or increase the populations of rare native and heritage semi-feral breeds by giving them the grazing.

Source: GOV.UK, SPM3 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 and stacks on the base action's payment on the same hectares. Multiplied out, supplement alone:

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 20 hectares is an illustration.

Is it worth it on your ground?

For a herd or flock already made of listed breeds, this is among the easiest money in the offer: the stock keep doing what they do, on land already entered into a base action, and the supplement pays per hectare for the fact of them. The record keeping is the only new work. For everyone else, the 80 per cent threshold is the whole question: it is measured across the total livestock units on the entered land in each season, so a commercial flock sharing the grazing dilutes the percentage fast, and getting over the line means acquiring and running rare breed stock, which is a herd decision with costs and markets this page cannot price. Rare breeds carry premiums in some meat markets and carry slower finishing in most; that trade is breed-specific and yours to work.

Source: the payment rate at the top of this page; the threshold from GOV.UK, SPM3 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 blunt part first. The claim sometimes made for native breeds, that their grazing is better for wildlife than commercial breeds', is poorly supported in the sources this site uses. Conservation Evidence assess using traditional breeds of livestock twice, and both assessments rest on the same replicated, controlled European study across four countries: for birds, the category is Unlikely to be beneficial, scored 0 per cent effectiveness and 44 per cent certainty, because no differences in bird abundance were found between areas grazed by traditional and commercial breeds; for wild mammals, Unknown effectiveness on the same single study, in which European hares used traditionally grazed and commercially grazed areas alike.

Source: Conservation Evidence, action 233, Bird Conservation synopsis, and action 2411, Terrestrial Mammal Conservation synopsis, both checked 23/08/2026.

But that is the wrong endpoint for this action, and the page should say so as clearly as it reports the scores. SPM3's stated aim is not that rare breeds graze differently; it is that rare breeds continue to exist. That is genetic conservation, the keeping of the at-risk list's breeds in living herds rather than in freezer banks, and a payment that makes rare breed grazing pay better than it otherwise would serves that aim by construction. We have found no study measuring whether such supplements grow breed populations, so the honest summary is: the wildlife case is unsupported, the breed-survival case is definitional, and which of those you weight is a judgement the evidence cannot make for you.

Source: the aim, GOV.UK, SPM3 action page, checked 23/08/2026. The reading is Tilth's own.

What you actually have to do

In each grazing season, keep more than 80 per cent of the total grazing livestock units on the entered land in breeds from the at-risk category of the UK native breeds support list, as pedigree rare native breeds or heritage semi-feral breeds registered in recognised breeding books. Keep monthly grazing records at parcel level, with each eligible animal's identification number and its registration or birth notification. Stay within the stocking rules of the base action underneath.

Source: GOV.UK, SPM3 action page, 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 80 per cent is in livestock units, not head. Units weight cattle far above sheep, so one commercial suckler outfit grazing alongside a rare breed flock can sink the percentage on its own. Run the GLU arithmetic per season before assuming the threshold holds.

The list is the law of the action. Eligibility is the at-risk category of the UK native breeds support list as published, and breeds move on and off such lists. Check the current list at application, and note which of your breeds sit near its edges.

Registration is per animal, not per flock. Individual identification numbers tied to pedigree registrations or birth notifications, kept in the record. An unregistered animal of a listed breed counts the wrong way, however native it looks.

Every season, all three years. The threshold applies in each grazing season. A summer of borrowed commercial grazing to tidy a flush of grass is precisely the innocent decision that breaks it.

GRH12 was on the list for a fortnight and is not now. GOV.UK added the wader action GRH12 as a base action for this supplement on 02/06/2026 and corrected it out on 17/06/2026. Anyone who read the page in that fortnight, or planned a wader field round it, is working from a version that no longer stands.

Keeping the evidence

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

The monthly grazing record is required, so build the register once and let it work: each animal's ID, breed, registration number, and the parcels and dates it grazed. The GLU sum per season falls straight out of a record kept that way, which turns the threshold from a worry into a report.

Source: evidence requirements, GOV.UK, SPM3 action page, checked 23/08/2026. The suggestion is Tilth's own.

The part only your own ground can answer

Whether your herd is already the right side of 80 per cent, and what running rare breeds costs and returns in your system, are livestock answers, not land ones. The register the action demands is the same one Tilth's livestock module keeps anyway, moves, identities and all, which makes the monthly record a by-product rather than a job. Request an invite.