The Tenant Farmers Association (TFA) has identified five areas where we need to seek a better balance for food and farming in the New Year.

TFA National Chair, Robert Martin, said: “In a lot of areas we simply need a return to common sense thinking. We have allowed too many things to become out of kilter for too long and we must find a better balance in how we do things.”

The first area identified by the TFA is the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) scheme in England. It was closed abruptly in the spring of 2024 because DEFRA lost control of managing the budget.

“A huge part of the problem with SFI was that it allowed massive amounts of land to switch out of food production into so-called environmental options with dubious levels of public benefit. This caused significant problems for tenant farmers and contract farmers who saw land removed from their occupation to allow the owners of that land to benefit from the generosity of the scheme. We need SFI back as soon as possible in 2026. However, it must take a much more balanced and land sharing approach so as not to damage the productivity and profitability of farming businesses up and down the country,” said Mr Martin.

Secondly, we need to balance the land being lost by tenant farmers to non-agricultural development, including the considerable increase in solar energy schemes with fairer levels of compensation.

“The TFA has been advising an increasing number of members who are under threat of losing land to development, particularly solar developments and are facing the loss of that land against a pitiful level of compensation that comes nowhere near covering their real losses. The TFA argued for new legal provisions within the Planning and Infrastructure Bill. However, the Government rejected those amendments despite assurances given to the tenanted sector of agriculture by the Prime Minister before the July 2024 General Election. The Government has promised to come forward with better guidance on this pending a full review of compensation provisions by the Law Commission and we must move that forward at pace,” said Mr Martin.

Thirdly, we need better balance within supply chains to ensure that primary producers are adequately rewarded.

“We have seen huge pressures on the arable and dairy sectors in particular who have suffered from low farmgate prices due to shifting commodity markets and high costs. Despite this, there has been very little if any movement in the retail prices from the products produced from these raw materials. Retailers and food service providers are clearly benefiting whilst processes are able to maintain their margins. We need the Groceries Code Adjudicator and the Agricultural Supply Chain Adjudicator to work more closely together to bring better balance in the supply chains,” said Mr Martin.

Fourthly, we need better balance in landlord tenant relationships.

“It was good news that the Government appointed Alan Laidlaw as England’s first Commissioner for the Tenant Farming Sector in 2025. Whilst there are many positive landlord tenant relationships and we welcome the extent to which many of the institutions recognise the need to embed good relationships with the tenant farmers, there remains too many situations where tenant farmers feel like second-class citizens. This must not be allowed to continue, and we will work constructively with the Commissioner to improve the situation. TFA Cymru is pleased to see that the Welsh Government is about to endorse a new agricultural landlord and tenant code of practice, and continues to press for a Tenant Farming Commissioner for Wales”.

Fifthly, we need better balance in respect of security of tenure on Farm Business Tenancy (FBT) agreements.

“It is not beneficial to the resilience, profitability and productivity of the tenanted sector of agriculture that 85% of all new FBT agreements are let for five years or less. Even if these continue on a year-to-year basis, this stifles investment, innovation and long-term thinking. The TFA was pleased that Baroness Minette Batters identified the lack of security of tenure as one of the areas for change in her recently published Farming Profitability Review. However, it feels like the TFA has been banging on about this for years without any serious improvement. We need change in the taxation environment within which landlords make decisions about letting land to incentivise long-term tenancies. The Government has a major opportunity to do that within the Finance Bill currently before Parliament by tweaking the changes it is making in respect of Inheritance Tax. However, it’s current dogmatic approach in opposing sensible finessing to its policy is going to fail us all. The Prime Minister
and the Chancellor of the Exchequer must be prepared to change tack,” said Mr Martin.