This blog is based on a piece, written by George Dunn, TFA Chief Executive, for The Cumberland News and Westmorland Gazette, published on 25 July 2025.

Even though the UK’s food and drink industry is the country’s biggest manufacturing sector by turnover, valued at £104.4 billion – larger than the automotive and aerospace industries combined (not my words but the words of the government) the primary producers who feed that sector barely got a mention in the recently published industrial strategy. The only issue worthy of mention was the development of agri-tech.

Whilst I do not diminish the importance of agri-tech, it is not the be all and end all of the issues that need to be addressed to ensure that UK agriculture can fulfil its potential for UK plc. Either DEFRA wasn’t properly consulted on the strategy or it failed to get an adequate hearing on what is really necessary to drive growth within farming. Either way, this is a major missed opportunity.

There is also an element of disjoint given that DEFRA has recently appointed former NFU President, Baroness Minette Batters to carry out a profitability review of agriculture. Minette has been given six months to complete her review, and it must surely be the case that her conclusions need to be considered properly and, as appropriate, added into the Government’s Industrial Strategy.

TFA has certainly provided Minette with a long list of items to be considered as part of her review. For the tenanted sector of agriculture this includes seeking to promote policies which encourage long-term tenancy agreements including looking at tax levers not least inheritance tax and income tax. Long-term tenancies drive investment, growth and productivity. Recent evidence from the Central Association of Agricultural Valuers has assessed that, in the main, tenanted farm businesses have a higher return on capital than their owner-occupier counterparts. Therefore, the model of agricultural tenancies automatically feeds into what is needed for business sustainability, resilience and growth.

To unleash the power of agricultural tenancies more fully, we need to see landlords being willing to use the full flexibility of the freedom of contract afforded to the sector by the Agricultural Tenancies Act 1995. However, there are elements of the legislation which do need to be reviewed including the legislative definition of agriculture which can be restrictive in the context of diversification and environmental uses and updating the Rules of Good Husbandry which have been on the statute books since 1947. To assist new entrants and progressive farmers on tenanted holdings who lack the necessary security for borrowing, the government must also look at the possibility of using exchequer backed loan guarantees. The major banks routinely advise some of the most well managed farm businesses in the country are those run by tenant farmers, but they struggle to lend to these businesses due to short lengths of term and lack of available security. Assuming that loans are still offered on the basis of affordability, a Government backed scheme would be a relatively cheap way to drive growth in the sector.

Supply chain issues need to be properly addressed with better join up between the Groceries Code Adjudicator (GCA) and the more recently appointed supply chain adjudicator. One suggestion promoted by the TFA, is requiring the top retailers (perhaps defined as those which fall under the coverage of the GCA) to regionalise their procurement and to undertake to ensure that there is no collusion between their respective regional procurement hubs to maximise competition between them and therefore drive further returns to primary producers and direct suppliers. It is not too far into the past that the Monopolies and Mergers Commission required that Milk Marque was split into four cooperatives operating regionally due to it being considered to be acting in an anti-competitive way so there is historical precedent for this type of disaggregation.

A shame then that the Industrial Strategy took such a narrow focus. An industry which covers 70% of the land area of our country and feeds our biggest manufacturing sector deserves better.