LENs funds a range of regenerative agriculture practices. The most popular in 2025 were: reduced/no tillage, to minimise soil disturbance; reduced use of synthetic inputs, including fertilisers, herbicides and pesticides; planting and managing hedgerows; and keeping soils covered/living roots in the soil.

Innovation funding can be used for practices which are not pre-defined, such as trials relevant to a farm business or capital and in-field investments, which last year included direct drills, low disturbance subsoilers and yield monitoring on combine.

In 2024, farmers received between £150-300 per hectare on average for measures implemented.

You need to have an existing relationship or be willing to establish a relationship with one of the companies who engage with our network of farmers within each region*. You'll need to be able to implement actions that are of interest to funders, and that result in the outcomes they are looking for (such as GHG emission reductions, improved water quality or natural flood management).

No, currently there is no minimum or maximum size.

Yes, you will be visited by a third-party provider once a year to assess the impact of the changes you are making on the farm. The results of this assessment will be shared with you and at an aggregated level with funders.

The sustainability results provided in your Farm Report will include things like:

• Soil organic matter content
• Nitrogen use efficiency
• Key biodiversity species score
• The extent to which the farm is practising regenerative land use and sustainable farming
• The amount of soil carbon sequestration from the current cropping year compared with previous year
• A breakdown of the farm practices that emit the most greenhouse gases
• You can use these results to compare yourself to other farms in the region, help make business decisions and use this data to apply for additional schemes and funding.

Typically, after submitting evidence of your investment/practice, you will receive a payment. The timing depends on the details of your contracts, but is around 20 days. Each set of payment evidence is verified by your local LENs Operator and the relevant Funders, but may also be audited by LENs.

The evidence required for each measure varies, and is set out in both the handbook for each Trade year, and clearly stated in your contracts too.

The range of funders is determined by a region's key crops and supply chains. Global food and drink companies are the main funders, including Diageo, Cereal Partners UK, Nestlé Purina, and PepsiCo. We also receive increasing investment from non-supply chain funders including water companies and local councils, who are interested in reducing the vulnerability of landscapes and their costs of operation.

State support is submitted alongside LENs funding.

Yes - if you manage multiple farm businesses, the details of these should be entered separately against the FB tabs. At LENs, a farm business is defined as a single business entity, which will be issued a single contract and be subject to MRV visits. You can have multiple properties under a farm visit, and these would be covered by one contract and one annual MRV visit.

If you are unsure of how to register interest for a farm business or property please get in touch with Rebecca or Tris depending on your region. As a general rule, a farm business is considered a single farm business entity. A farm business requires 1 LENs contract, 1 unique LENs ID and 1 annual MRV visit.

Where the same farm business consists of multiple farm properties managed by the same person/people, LENs considers these to fall under the same farm unless they are physically or functionally very different. In this instance multiple properties could be listed under one business, sharing a contract, LENs ID and MRV visits.

First speak to your supply aggregator, they will be able to answer most of your queries and support you throughout the application, implementation and reporting phases of LENs.

If you would like to speak to a LENs representative please contact

• East of England - Tris Baxter-Smith at tris.baxter-smith@the-lens.co
• Yorkshire - Rebecca Thompson at rebecca.thompson@the-lens.co