The Universal Code within Wales’ Sustainable Farming Scheme requires at least 10% of each Welsh farm to be actively managed as habitat to benefit biodiversity alongside food production. This is an important element of the scheme to help Welsh Government achieve their biodiversity targets and tackle the nature emergency (government guidelines on the Universal Code can be found here).
A Baseline Habitat Assessment (BHA), often created for Nature Reporting projects, is an excellent foundation for working out and sharing your farm’s habitat cover for the Universal Code.
Ensure your BHA is as accurate as possible - Before you create your Sustainable Farming Scheme 2026 plan, it is important to ensure your BHA is as accurate and detailed as possible.
Convert your BHA to the Sustainable Farming Scheme 2026 - To create your Sustainable Farming Scheme 2026, simply select the three dots to the right of your Biodiversity Habitat Assessment and select duplicate Plan.
You are then presented with a list of new plans you can create from your Baseline Habitat Assessment. Scroll down and select the plan ‘Sustainable Farming Scheme 2026’ and then rename your plan something clearly recognisable before clicking the button ‘Create Plan’.
Review habitats - As far as possible, we will convert the UKHabitat Classifications you have assigned across your farm to habitat types from the Sustainable Farming Scheme.
The conversion may not always be possible however, in these cases, the field in your Sustainable Farming Scheme will be left unassigned. You will need to assign a use in your plan by clicking on the field and assigning the appropriate land use.
Review your habitat cover - You can check if your current habitats count towards your 10% habitat cover by clicking on the field and checking to see if ‘Habitat cover’ is ‘Yes’. All these habitats contribute to your percentage.
Work out your percentage habitat cover - The easiest way to work our your total habitat cover percentage is to create a report for your plan (guidance here). You can then use the summary table to see the percentage cover of the different habitats across your farm. Adding up the percentages of your farm that contribute to your habitat cover will give you your total percentage.
For example, in the report shown below, it is the coniferous woodland and unassigned areas that don’t contribute to the habitat cover. All other habitats contribute, so this farms Habitat cover for the Universal Code would be 50.2%.
