Biodiversity Net Gain
Biodiversity Net Gain: For Farmers
What Biodiversity Net Gain changes for the person actually doing the work.
For the person running the business, the test of any farm software is whether it removes work or adds it. Biodiversity Net Gain created a statutory market for habitat units with a legally secured thirty-year management obligation. This module assesses baseline and uplift using the statutory metric, models the income against the land use given up, manages gain site registration and the legal agreement, and holds the monitoring record for the full commitment period.
In their words
What the job actually looks like
These are not marketing personas. Each one is a distinct job with a distinct constraint, and the module is designed so that solving one does not create work for the others.
Landowner
Considering a habitat bank
Needs the thirty-year obligation valued honestly against the income.
- Assess and record the baseline habitat
- Model creation and enhancement options
- Calculate units generated
- Appraise against the agricultural alternative
Developer
Meeting the gain requirement
Needs registered units with secure legal delivery.
- Model creation and enhancement options
- Calculate units generated
- Appraise against the agricultural alternative
- Register the gain site
Ecological consultant
Metric assessment
Needs consistent baseline and condition assessment records.
- Calculate units generated
- Appraise against the agricultural alternative
- Register the gain site
- Complete the legal agreement
End to end
How Biodiversity Net Gain runs, start to finish
The module is modelled as a state machine, so at any point the business knows exactly which stage every record is at and what has to happen next.
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1
Assess and record the baseline habitat
This is where the record starts, and getting it right here removes work at every later stage.
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2
Model creation and enhancement options
The platform prompts only for what this stage genuinely needs, and carries everything forward.
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3
Calculate units generated
Conflicts with scheme rules, regulatory windows and existing commitments are flagged here rather than discovered later.
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4
Appraise against the agricultural alternative
Capture works offline, so this stage is completed in the field rather than remembered afterwards.
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5
Register the gain site
Everything recorded at this point becomes evidence automatically, in every format that will later ask for it.
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6
Complete the legal agreement
This is the stage most businesses currently do twice, once for the operation and once for the paperwork.
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7
Create and manage the habitat
Results feed the whole-farm view, so the effect of this stage is visible against the rest of the business.
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8
Monitor and report for thirty years
The cycle closes here, and what is learned is carried into next season's plan rather than lost.
Capabilities
What Biodiversity Net Gain does
Every capability below is built on the same underlying record, so entering something once is enough for it to appear wherever it is needed.
Record and plan
- Baseline habitat assessment using the statutory biodiversity metric
- Habitat condition assessment following the published criteria
- Uplift modelling across habitat creation and enhancement options
Operate and monitor
- Unit calculation with distinctiveness, condition, strategic significance and risk multipliers
- Spatial risk multiplier handling for off-site delivery
- Income modelling against the agricultural margin forgone over thirty years
Comply and evidence
- Gain site registration workflow with the register application
- Section 106 or conservation covenant legal agreement management
- Habitat management and monitoring plan authoring for the full thirty years
Analyse and improve
- Monitoring evidence capture with fixed-point photography and survey records
- Buyer matching and unit sale process with price benchmarking
- Stacking assessment against carbon codes, nutrient credits and public schemes
Payment schedule
What is due, and when it lands
Farm support arrives in instalments from several bodies on different calendars. Set against your own overdraft, the question is not how much but when — so the ledger is ordered by date, not by scheme.
| When | Payment | From | Amount | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| February | Biodiversity Net Gain | Natural England / local planning authorities | — | Expected |
| March | Countryside Stewardship | Defra / Natural England / Rural Payments Agency | — | Agreed |
| June | Sustainable Farming Incentive 2026 | Defra / Rural Payments Agency | — | Eligible |
| June | Environmental Land Management Capital Grants | Defra / Rural Payments Agency | — | Eligible |
| December | Farming Equipment and Technology Fund | Defra / Rural Payments Agency | — | Eligible |
| February | Farming Transformation Fund | Defra / Rural Payments Agency | — | Eligible |
- — Agreed and scheduled
- — Claimed, awaiting payment
- — Eligible, unclaimed
What the statuses mean
- Agreed
- Under a signed agreement with a scheduled payment date.
- Expected
- Claimed and assessed; payment date per the published standard.
- Eligible
- Your holding appears to qualify but nothing is claimed yet.
Worked example
How a business like yours would use Biodiversity Net Gain
The problem: Needs the thirty-year obligation valued honestly against the income.
What they do
- Assess and record the baseline habitat
- Model creation and enhancement options
- Calculate units generated
- Appraise against the agricultural alternative
What changes
- Units generated
- Price achieved per unit
- Income per hectare against agricultural alternative
This is an illustrative worked example built from the module design, not a customer reference. Named case studies are published only with the business's written consent.
What we are hearing
The problems people describe to us
These are composite statements drawn from user research conversations, not attributed customer quotes. We publish named references only with written consent.
I am not short of software. I am short of one place where the same field means the same thing in all of it.
The scheme closed on a Tuesday evening. I had the application half built. Nobody told me the budget was nearly gone.
We farm on both sides of the border. Everything takes twice as long and I still cannot see the whole position on one screen.
Audit week costs me three days. Every single record they ask for is already written down somewhere on this farm.
Measurement
How you will know it is working
The module reports against these measures from the day it is switched on, so the value is demonstrable rather than assumed.
- 01Units generated
- 02Price achieved per unit
- 03Income per hectare against agricultural alternative
- 04Monitoring compliance rate
- 05Habitat condition achieved against target
Free tool
Run the numbers for your own holding
Enter your figures and get an answer you can act on, with the method shown so you can check it. Save the result to your account or take it away as a PDF.