Farm profitability review: NFU outlines key reforms needed to support British farmers

NFU suggests that the government should make it easier for businesses to invest by improving access to finance, using tax breaks effectively, promoting energy independence, and creating a stable policy environment to build investor confidence.

It should also create the right conditions to support business development through enabling planning and smart, modern regulatory frameworks and applied near-market research and development and knowledge transfer.

Reforming market incentives and supply chain relationships would ensure that farmers can compete on a level playing field with international competitors and release the opportunities of domestic and export market growth while also benefiting from strengthened and more equitable relationships within supply chains, NFU said.

The union added that given the persistence of market failures in the agri-food chain, incentives such as the government’s Environmental Land Management scheme (ELMs), including the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) and the mobilisation of private capital through supply-chain insetting agreements to support sustainable farming practices, have an important role to play in aligning environmental delivery with the profitable production of food, energy, and fibre.

Farmers’ fight for financial survival

NFU president Tom Bradshaw said that this review led by Baroness Batters comes at a “critical moment” for the farming industry.

He continued: “It lands as farmers face a perfect storm, and for many, it’s become a battle to keep their businesses afloat. Confidence is at an all-time low, with deep uncertainty over investment and environmental schemes, climate pressures and resulting changes to our weather, increasingly volatile markets, and threats from changes to inheritance tax.

“In some sectors, farmers focus on food production is now overshadowed by a fight for financial survival.

“This review presents our industry with an important opportunity to identify those areas of reform that are desperately needed to not only improve business confidence but also drive competitiveness and profitability, which are critical elements of thriving farming businesses, and central to achieving government’s own targets for economic growth. Profitable farming will result in increased food production, will help to meet our domestic environmental targets and deliver national food security.”

Mr Bradshaw added that enhancing opportunities for investment through improved access to finance and the effective use of tax reliefs, alongside a drive for greater energy resilience and a stable policy environment to encourage investor confidence, could all be game changers. Reforming market incentives and supply chain relationships and creating smart regulatory frameworks such as an enabling planning system is also key, according to the NFU.

‘We must ensure our farms are profitable and viable’

Mr Bradshaw explained that the recommendations and actions outlined in the NFU submission will help create a more collaborative and equitable marketplace, enabling our farmers and growers to invest in their businesses and drive profitability and growth in the long term.

“British farmers provide the raw ingredients for the UK’s largest manufacturing sector, food and drink, worth £148 billion to the UK economy, and provide jobs for more than 4 million people.

“As the foundation of the food industry, we must ensure our farms are profitable and viable so they can keep producing sustainable and affordable food alongside renewable energy, drive economic growth, provide jobs, and deliver our national environmental ambitions,” he concluded.

As part of the profitability review, Baroness Batters, the former NFU president, aims to provide short-, medium-, and long-term recommendations and propose actions for the government and industry to support farming profitability.

READ MORE: Former NFU president Minette Batters to lead farm profitability review

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