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31 December 2026: most Universal Actions that apply to you must be complete.

15 January 2027: you must have confirmed them on your SFS Universal Dashboard in RPW Online.

Some actions run on their own dates. A designated site management plan is due by 31 December 2030. The tree and hedgerow plan is due by 31 December 2026, progress by 31 December 2028 and planting by 31 March 2029. New hedgerow trees are planted by 31 March 2027. The hedge, habitat, woodland and historic feature rules apply all year, not on one date.

The balance of your Universal Payment is not paid until the dashboard is updated.

Source: Rules booklet L12, page 111, and Annex 6

It is a page in your RPW Online account that lists which Universal Actions apply to your holding and lets you confirm each one.

Some items fill in by themselves, such as learning and benchmarking done through Farming Connect, and the tree and hedgerow planting plan once submitted.

It is the authority for your farm. Where this guide and your dashboard differ, follow the dashboard.

Source: Rules booklet L12; key messages 26 June 2026

A missed requirement is treated as a breach. It may be found at inspection or through administrative checks.

Sanctions range from an advisory letter to a financial penalty taken from your Universal Payment, depending on how serious it is. You are told in writing.

If something outside your control stops you meeting a requirement, such as extreme weather or a tenancy issue, ask for a derogation through the form in RPW Online before the deadline.

Source: Rules booklet Section K, page 105, and Q5, page 129

Five years, on the farm, available if an inspector asks.

An activity diary can be on paper or electronic. There is no set format.

For farms with land in England too: check the evidence-retention rules for your agreement year. The seven-year period after the agreement ends refers to SFI26; do not assume every SFI agreement has identical rules.

Source: Rules booklet Section J record keeping; SFI26 scheme rules 12.4

Each task in your list moves through three steps, and you set each one yourself. To do: nothing recorded yet. Evidence held: you have done the work and keep the record or document that shows it; a few records in the diary do not mean the requirement is fully covered, so tick it when they do. I confirmed it on RPW: you have confirmed the action on your SFS Universal Dashboard in RPW Online.

Only the confirmation on RPW Online counts for your payment. Porthmon cannot see your RPW account and does not check your evidence; every step here is your own note.

You do not need to tick each task one by one at the end. The last line of your list, "Confirm on RPW Online", opens a checklist of every action that applies to you, with one button for "I confirmed all of these on RPW". From 1 December it also appears at the top of your list.

Source: Rules booklet L12, page 111

Yes. On the first screen of the check, choose "Start with the documents I already hold" and tick what you have, such as FAWL, Red Tractor or Pasture for Life membership, a vet-signed health plan, soil tests taken since 1 January 2022, an IPM plan or a tree and hedgerow plan.

Each document answers some questions for you and counts as evidence for the tasks it covers. It does not cover everything: assurance membership counts for the measure and plan steps of animal health in 2026, but welfare training and condition and mobility scoring are still needed.

Source: Welsh Government Written Statement, 9 October 2026; rules booklet J1 to J12

The check is for the Sustainable Farming Scheme in Wales. For England there is a separate page, Farming in England, at porthmon.com/england: what is known about the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI), what to get ready before the next window, and how the diary can hold the evidence an SFI agreement asks you to keep.

SFI 2027 details have not been published yet (checked 16 October 2026). If your holding has land on both sides of the border, check with Rural Payments Wales and the Rural Payments Agency how each part is treated.

Source: SFI26 scheme rules and guidance; Defra Farming blog, September 2026

Yes, once you have opened Porthmon on your phone with signal. Add it to your home screen: on an iPhone, tap Share and then Add to Home Screen; on Android, open the browser menu and choose Install app or Add to Home screen.

After that it opens like an app, and you can check your list and write records in the field without signal. Records are saved on your phone straight away. If you are signed in, they are copied to your account when signal comes back.

Yes, with Snap & Say, once you are signed in. In the diary, first choose the job you did. For a spray, soil test, training, vet visit, felling licence or certificate, press the photo button (for example "Snap the product label") and take a picture of the label, report or paperwork. For a spray or a course you can also press "Say it" and say what you did in one sentence (tap the microphone on your phone's keyboard). Jobs recorded with a few choices, such as hedge work, do not need it. The boxes fill themselves; the ones it filled turn green.

Always check them before saving: it can misread a smudged label, and anything it could not read is left empty and listed. It needs signal, and it can be used 20 times a day. It is free, like the rest of the diary.

Snap & Say uses Claude, an AI model made by Anthropic, to read the photo or sentence. Porthmon does not keep the photo or sentence on its server; the privacy notice explains the details.

Every record shows one of three labels. Self-declared: your own record, written by you or filled by Snap & Say and checked by you. Evidence attached: you attached a photo or document, such as the lab report, the product label or a certificate. Checked: a named person checked the record on a date; today this happens only in the demonstration.

Snap & Say never raises a label; attaching the document does. Nothing on Porthmon is called verified. See How we label proof for more.

Not yet. It is planned: a buyer, assessor or adviser will be able to ask for specific proof, such as your assurance certificate or last vet visit, and you will decide whether to answer, with which records and until when. You can take it back at any time.

Today you can see how it would look in Share proof. A small pilot with buyers in North Wales and Cheshire is planned for November 2026.

No. Porthmon helps you keep your records and show them when you choose. It is not an assurance scheme, it does not inspect your farm, and it does not decide whether you meet a scheme's rules: your scheme dashboard, your assessor and your inspector do.

It is designed to work alongside RPW Online, EIDCymru, FARMDATA+ and assurance schemes such as FAWL and Red Tractor, not to replace them.

Everything that helps you keep your records is free, for good: the check and task list, the diary, every tool that helps you record (including Snap & Say, within a fair daily limit), and printing or downloading your own records. The SFS check and manual records need no account. Sign in for free to sync and use Snap & Say.

Later, sharing checked records with a buyer or lender will be a paid extra, kept at a low monthly price. Farmers who start before it launches get it free for their first year. The free tools are paid for by clearly labelled sponsorship from farm suppliers. Porthmon does not sell farmers' data or show tracking adverts.

A porthmon (plural porthmyn) was a Welsh drover. The porthmyn walked cattle and sheep to English markets, carried news between places and were trusted with other people's money. Porthmon does the same three things for today's farms: information, a route to market and trust that travels. The full story is on the About page.

No. It is a plain-language guide to the published rules, with the source shown beside each point.

Porthmon is not part of the Welsh Government or Rural Payments Wales. For a decision about your own holding, use your dashboard, the RPW Customer Contact Centre (0300 062 5004) or your adviser.

Your answers are saved in this browser. Device-only answers stay separate from account answers until you choose to copy them. The check runs in your browser. Your answers and progress are saved in that browser only, so you can come back to your list; "Start again" clears them.

Signing in is optional. Each account has its own records and saved SFS list. Device-only records stay separate until you choose to copy them from the account page. Records created in an account sync to that account, so you can reach them from another device. You can delete the account whenever you like.

If you choose to message us at the end, we receive only what is in that message, which you can read before sending.

The Sustainable Farming Scheme is the Welsh scheme. It pays only on land in Wales and its rules apply only to that land.

If you farm on both sides of the border, your Welsh land must meet every requirement on its own. Habitat on your English fields cannot be counted towards the 10% habitat requirement in Wales.

One thing does carry across: a whole-farm Integrated Pest Management assessment is accepted, so you do not need a separate one for the Welsh land.

Land in England comes under the Sustainable Farming Incentive, run by the Rural Payments Agency, with its own login, deadlines and record-keeping period.

Source: Scheme description, cross-border businesses; rules booklet Section D

You are in the scheme for 2026 if you claimed the SFS Universal Layer on your Single Application Form (SAF), which closed on 15 May 2026. Late forms were accepted with a penalty until 9 June.

If you claimed the Basic Payment Scheme instead, you are not bound by the Universal Actions this year. BPS is being phased out, so the list still shows what you would face on joining.

Not sure? Log in to RPW Online and open your submitted SAF 2026. If an SFS Universal Dashboard appears in your account, you are in.

Source: Rules booklet Section A and Annex 6 (key dates)

Improved land is land that has been managed to raise its productivity, for example by reseeding, or land that has had or may get lime or inputs.

Inputs means slurry, farmyard manure, other organic manures, inorganic fertiliser, lime, basic slag, calcified seaweed, sewage sludge and wastepaper sludge.

Permanent habitat land is not improved land and does not need soil testing.

If a field of improved land has had no inputs since 1 April 2022 and will get none this year, you can say so on the SAF and it drops out of the soil-testing requirement.

Your SFS Universal Dashboard lists the exact parcels that need testing. That list is the one to follow.

Source: Rules booklet J1.2 and J1.4, page 49

It covers herbicides, insecticides, fungicides (including seed dressings), slug pellets and plant growth regulators.

Small uses count. Spot spraying docks or thistles with a knapsack, or using a weed wiper, brings you into this action.

It also counts if a contractor applies the product on land you farm and claim.

If nothing at all is used during the whole calendar year, the action does not apply to you.

Source: Rules booklet J2.2, page 53

The animal health action applies if you are the owner or registered keeper of livestock reared or farmed for food or goods.

It does not apply to animals kept only as pets, or to stock on your land that is someone else's responsibility, such as sheep on tack.

Small enterprises selling only at the farm gate (eggs, for example) or keeping animals for their own table still do the biosecurity assessment and the welfare training, but not the vet-led Animal Health Improvement Cycle.

With more than one species, the health cycle and the biosecurity assessment are done for one species only. You and your vet choose which.

Source: Rules booklet J12.2 to J12.5, pages 96 to 99

On 9 October 2026 the Welsh Government confirmed that members of Farm Assured Welsh Livestock (FAWL), Red Tractor and Pasture for Life can use their membership to show they have met the Measure and Plan steps of the Animal Health Improvement Cycle for 2026.

You declare your membership on the SFS Universal Dashboard. You do not fill in a second health plan.

Membership does not cover everything. The Incoming Animal Biosecurity Risk Assessment and the welfare training with body condition and mobility scoring are still due by 31 December.

If you are not a member, nothing changes: follow the published guidance with your vet.

Source: Welsh Government Written Statement, 9 October 2026

It applies to hedges you have management control of and manage by cutting or trimming. If you never cut your hedges, the rules below do not bind you.

The main rule is not to cut the same hedge two years running. That covers both sides: you cannot do one side this year and the other side next year.

Yearly cutting is allowed where a hedge overhangs a road, track or footpath and it is needed for safety, as part of routine ditch maintenance on improved land, or where a utility company cuts under its lines. Keep a photo or letter showing why.

No cutting from 1 March to 31 August. Each cut should leave the hedge a little taller and wider, at least 5 cm.

You also need one hedgerow tree for every 50 metres of hedge on average. This is worked out field parcel by field parcel: a parcel with 200 metres of hedge should have four. You can mark saplings to grow on, or plant new trees by 31 March 2027.

Source: Rules booklet J8, page 73

Woodland means blocks of tree canopy of 0.1 hectares or more that you have management control of. That is about a quarter of an acre. It can be broadleaf, conifer or mixed.

Single trees and groups smaller than 0.1 hectares are not woodland for this action. They are covered by the general tree rules in the Universal Code.

Orchards and wood pasture are treated as habitat, not woodland.

Tenants should check their tenancy. If the woodland or the trees are reserved to the landlord, your responsibilities are different.

Source: Rules booklet J9.2 and J9.3, page 77

The SFS Map shows what the Welsh Government holds about your holding: habitat and woodland areas, designated sites such as SSSIs, and historic features such as scheduled monuments.

Find it by logging in to RPW Online and opening the Land tab. Since 1 July 2026 the login is GOV.UK One Login.

Semi-natural habitat includes species-rich or marshy grassland, heath, bogs and fens, saltmarsh, sand dunes, traditional orchards, dense bracken, scrub, wood pasture and wildlife ponds.

Upland open habitat is unenclosed land above the upper limit of enclosure: a mix of heath, bog and grassland. If you have it, you also keep a stocking diary.

If the map is wrong, report boundary and feature errors to RPW through Manage My Land.

Source: Rules booklet Section F, page 20; J5.2, page 63

At least 10% of your eligible whole-farm area in Wales must be actively managed as habitat. A 75 hectare farm needs 7.5 hectares.

The SAF does the sum for you and tells you whether you meet it.

These count, in this order: semi-natural habitat, established broadleaf woodland of 0.1 hectares or more, hedgerows restored or created since 1 April 2022 under Glastir or Small Grants, hedgerows in good condition, and temporary habitat you create on improved land.

Common land and shared grazing do not count, unless you are the sole grazier.

If you fall short, you create temporary habitat on improved land. Most options had to be established earlier in the season, so check what is still possible this year.

Source: Rules booklet Section I, page 39; J6, page 66

You need two things by 31 December: benchmarking, and six hours of learning plus the health and safety module. You can do them in different places, which is why the check asks about each.

If you use Farming Connect, completion is passed to RPW automatically and you keep no paperwork for inspection. FARMDATA+ is its free benchmarking tool.

If you use another provider or tool, you enter the details on the dashboard yourself and keep the records for five years.

For 2026 the health and safety module must be done through Farming Connect whichever route you choose for the rest.

Your own farm records do not count as benchmarking. It has to be a dedicated tool.

Source: Rules booklet J3 and J4, pages 56 to 62