Future Government department spending commitments outlined in the Chancellors spending review are not as bad for Defra as feared, but still suggest an absence of recognition for the importance of domestic food production, and a similar lack of ambition for the environment, says NSA, as overall department funds for Defra look set to drop by 2.7% between 2024 and 2029.

NSA maintains that just to have kept pace with inflation from the pre-Brexit era, the total offering to farmers and land managers would need to be more than £3 billion a year rather than the 2.7 billion on the table.

However, within this, support for Environmental Land Management schemes (ELMS) looks set to increase substantially towards 2028/29, which at this stage looks encouraging.

“The details of all this are still not clear, and the outcomes will be more affected by internal budget adjustments. It certainly looks as though the department will be faced with resource cuts and cost efficiencies." says NSA Chief Executive, Phil Stocker.

"What really grieves me is that this shows our nation still isn’t properly valuing home-produced healthy foods, resilient supply chains and the overall offering of farming to the health and well-being of people and the security of our nation. It also isn’t yet putting a proper value on natural resources, nature, and all the other public goods that come from farming."