This is the full report delivered by TFA National Chair, Robert Martin at the 2026 TFA AGM held at the Farmers Club, London:
Tenant Farmers Association | FORTY- FOURTH ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING | Wednesday 11 March 2026
Report from the National Chair, Robert Martin:
It is hard to believe that I am about to enter my third and final year as TFA National Chair. My predecessors did warn me how fast my time in office would feel but you don’t really appreciate and understand that until you are in the middle of it. When I started this role in 2024 I had in my head so many things that I wanted the TFA to achieve and looking back over the past 24 months I do believe that despite our relative size in comparison to some of the larger organisations representing our industry, the TFA has had truly important and meaningful impact in a broad range of areas.
Indeed, throughout its 45 years of existence, the TFA has been the consistent, dedicated and reasoned voice of tenant farmers, together with all those who do not own the land they use for their farming businesses. The issues impacting tenant farmers are regularly referenced by Government Ministers, by members of the UK and Welsh Parliaments, by civil servants and by a host of industry commentators because of the voice of the TFA. The fact that we had the Rock Review on agricultural tenancies, the Landlord and Tenant Code of Practice and the appointment of the Commissioner for the Tenant Farming Sector in England and so much more is only down to the TFA being at the table speaking up for the tenanted sector of agriculture very often against the odds and against opposition from vested interests.
We have won our place at the table because of our resolute focus on bringing the reality of the situations faced by many within the tenanted sector to those who have the power to change the narrative. However, we have not just brought problems to the table, we have brought solutions and we will continue to do so. Much of my report for this year’s AGM sets out our achievements in delivering real and effective change for the benefit for all tenant farmers across England and Wales. Nevertheless, I do have to express a disappointment that we do not have more tenant farmers seeing the TFA as their natural home. Whilst I acknowledge that “free riding” is an issue faced by many organisations operating within the public sphere, I would like to see many more tenant farmers understand the benefit of TFA membership. Despite the very good work and impact of the TFA, imagine what more could be achieved if the TFA had double its current membership. Food for thought.
Alongside our important and effective lobbying, I should highlight the essential job carried out by the TFA day in and day out in providing advice information and support to its members. In the year to October 2025 the TFA reported that it had undertaken 8000 individual advisory consultations with members covering 1700 hours of time. By any measure that is a significant input into the resilience and sustainability of the tenanted sector of agriculture and the individual businesses within it. The TFA is regularly praised by its members for the quality, clarity and applicability of the advice that it provides. Another hugely important factor here is the strong relationship that exists between the TFA and its members. Alongside the technical advisory support I know that there is as much, if not more pastoral care provided by our dedicated team at the TFA head office. It is vital that we maintain that connection with our members and I am keen to ensure that we are able to support our staff in delivering that.
Coming from Cumbria I feel it is important to reflect on the 25-year anniversary of the 2001 foot and mouth outbreak. Cumbria was one of the most badly affected areas in terms of the outbreak but every livestock farmer across the country experienced the trauma of almost a year of impact from the disease. Of course, the TFA was there briefing it’s members and speaking on their behalf with Government. For me, I will recall how quickly moved from distant news to a threat at our doorstep. Having taken on the family farm tenancy on 01 February 2001, I watched as the disease reached Cumbria less than three weeks later. Strict biosecurity became part of daily life, yet every neighbouring farm in my village eventually went down with the disease. I vividly remember applying fertiliser while seeing my neighbours’ cattle being taken away. Although my own farm was spared on the day the contiguous cull reached us, only because slaughter teams were overwhelmed, the months that followed were extraordinarily hard. Markets were closed, buildings overflowed and feeding livestock under severe movement restrictions became a daily strain, both financially and emotionally.
Although FMD came back to our shores in 2007 thankfully, its grip was not as long and difficult as the 2021 outbreak. However, with FMD cases in Germany, Hungary and Slovakia earlier last year and currently within Cyprus, we cannot let our guard down in terms of disease control. It is alarming that despite the huge financial, emotional and social cost of the 2001 outbreak that we are still allowing illegal meat into our country through various routes. In fact, our border controls are so lax in comparison to other countries there is a real threat to our food security if we do not step up our diligence in preventing risky material entering through our ports and airports. We need to learn from countries like New Zealand and Australia to keep out threats that could be dangerous to our resilience and sustainability. As we see the degree of global instability playing out before our eyes, we need to protect our ability to farm and grow our way out of a potential food security crisis at home.
The dominant issue in play over the past 18 months has, of course, been the changes to be introduced to Inheritance Tax reliefs next month. When the Chancellor of the Exchequer stood up in the House of Commons to deliver her October 2024 Budget she said that the changes she was proposing to Inheritance Tax reliefs would be carried out in such a way as they would not impact “hard-working farm families”. How quickly it became obvious after she sat down that she had clearly very little idea of how the changes she would champion over the weeks and months ahead would indeed hit many of the hard-working farming families she was so keen to say she was protecting.
The reaction from the industry was predictably severe with most voices calling on the Government to abandon its policy by reversing the changes that it had set out. However, in keeping with the TFA’s preference for reasoned debate, we attempted to understand what was behind the Government’s changes. The first, and most obvious objective, was to raise cash for the public finances. However, there was at least an understanding that this had to be done in a way which did not hit family farms hard. The second, and less obvious objective was to target wealthy individuals who were attempting to hide that wealth from tax. In respect of that latter objective, the TFA sought to advise the Government that it had made the situation worse not better. By increasing the rate of Capital Gains Tax (CGT), another October 2024 Budget measure, there would be a greater degree of demand for people looking to find ways of avoiding that CGT liability. With unused pension pots being taken out of the zero-rate band for Inheritance Tax and with land being left at half rate for new purchases of land, there was a real incentive created for individuals making capital gains in other parts of the economy investing in land to claim Business Assets Rollover Relief whilst obtaining half rate on their Inheritance Tax liability. What’s not to like you might say. The TFA is continuing to advise that a better way forward would be to abolish or severely restrict the availability of that rollover relief.
However, turning back to the first objective, the TFA said out a number of measures that the Government needed to consider in order to meet its revenue raising objective whilst providing an effective safety net for family farms, many of which would be tenanted. Firstly, we argued for an increase in the zero rate IHT threshold to £2 million. Secondly, we argued for the ability for that threshold to be transferred between spouses and civil partners. No other industry organisations were arguing for these two changes with most fixated on the unattainable Government U-turn. However, eventually both of these changes were delivered first on spousal transfers within the November 2025 Budget and then within the pre-Christmas 2025 announcement that the zero-rate threshold would be increased to £2.5 million. Other industry organisations may have reclaimed these as victories but only the TFA was consistently lobbying for those changes.
The third change which we still need to get across the line is our long-running campaign to encourage longer term Farm Business Tenancies by allowing landlords who are letting those tenancies on terms of 10 years or more to claim the value of land as part of their zero-rate threshold for Inheritance Tax. Those proposals continue to have relevance and, indeed, have acquired a new level of relevance in the context of the wider changes to Agricultural and Business Property reliefs (APR and BPR). Indeed, the Treasury under the last Conservative administration undertook a consultation exercise based on a variant of the TFA’s policy. However, the then Government decided not to introduce any changes in large part because it was concerned that landlords would simply switch from letting land to farming in hand to access BPR. However, with the combined changes being made to APR and BPR, that issue would no longer be a concern. For the benefit of productivity, profitability, resilience and environmental management, we are continuing to press the Government to reconsider its position on this.
Why is this important, it is because around 30% of the agricultural land of England and Wales is farmed under some form of farm tenancy agreement and over half of that is rented under Farm Business Tenancies (FBTs) regulated by the Agricultural Tenancies Act 1995. These FBT agreements are characterised by short lengths of term. The current average length of term on these agreements is 3.97 years and over 80% of all new tenancies are let for 5 years or less.
The TFA has seen the advisory industry which surrounds the landlord community step into gear by promoting the need for estates to look at restructuring their position to maximise their ability to avoid tax. With the landlord community being considerably risk averse, the TFA is seeing many situations where private landlords are seeking to bring back into hand land currently let under short-term FBT agreements to provide them with options for wealth management or to raise the funds necessary to pay any unexpected tax bill. We have had plenty of conversations with TFA members who are worried about their position.
The TFA has also been contacted directly by representatives from several privately owned estates where management decisions are being made in response to the Inheritance Tax changes. Some estates are already looking to bring tenancies to an end to allow land to be sold to settle any anticipated tax bills. Others are deciding to reduce lengths of term being offered to tenants who were anticipating renewals of leases on a long-term basis, so that those farms are more readily able to be sold if a tax charge is incurred. Some are considering whether there are more lucrative uses for their land outside of the agricultural system which would allow for a greater degree of income to be earned commensurate with the value of the land that will fall to be taxed. Others are looking to scale back investment in let land on things like vital infrastructure, drainage and general repairs and maintenance to avoid enhancing the value of their farms against which tax will be paid. All of this will damage resilience, productivity and growth within the agricultural industry, particularly its let sector. The Government must think again here if it is to stave off an unnecessary reduction in capacity within the let sector.
If the DEFRA figures on farm rents published in February this year are to be believed, it is reporting a 6% reduction in the number of FBT agreements over the past year. In fact, the DEFRA figures indicate that the number of FBT agreements have fallen from 40,000 in 2018 down to 30,000 in 2025. Farm tenancies are a vital part of the agricultural industry providing opportunities for new entrants, bringing liquidity to the most fixed factor of production in agriculture, land, combining those who are asset rich with those who have entrepreneurial flair and creating opportunities for progressive farmers. We need tax and regulatory systems which support new and continuing FBT agreements.
A Before moving on from Inheritance Tax, another injustice which needs to be addressed is that the value of any joint tenancy inherited on the death of one or more joint tenants should be excluded from Inheritance Tax. To date, the value of any inherited portion of a business or agricultural tenancy held jointly following the death of one of the joint tenants has been fully relievable either through APR or BPR. Given that in most cases it will be impossible for the surviving joint tenant or tenants to realise the value of any inherited share of the tenancy on death, it is patently unfair that a tax charge should be levied. The unfairness is underlined by the fact that an imputed value for the share of the joint tenancy would have to be calculated which is at best theoretical. The TFA argues that such situations should be excluded from any liability for Inheritance Tax where the joint interest was held under a contract of tenancy made in a transaction at arm’s length between unconnected parties or at full value between connected parties.
As referenced earlier, one of the biggest achievements for TFA lobbying delivered last year was the appointment of Alan Laidlaw to be the first Commissioner for the Tenant Farming Sector in England. The TFA warmly welcomed his appointment and committed to supporting him in carrying out this important role. As this role is currently non-statutory, the Commissioner will have to work hard to ensure that he has real influence and impact on a sector which needs to see huge change in the conduct of relationships between landlords, tenants and land agents.
To that end, it has been encouraging to see the extent to which the Commissioner has been working to build his credibility within the sector including amongst the organisations representing tenants, landlords, and agents. Not only do we want him to be addressing bad practice but also to set out, in a determined way, what is good practice. By shining a light on those areas where good practice can be demonstrated will provide a good contrast for the unfortunately high number of situations where bad practice abounds. With the TFA’s own survey indicating that 30% of tenants felt bullied or intimidated by their landlords and 37% said the same about their landlords’ agents, clearly there will be a lot of rot to deal with.
One way that the Commissioner could gain real traction would be to convince landlords to incorporate the agreed Agricultural Landlord and Tenant Code of Practice into their tenancy agreements. Some institutional landlords, such as The Crown Estate, have done this already but this could be an easy win for the Commissioner, and it would have the advantage of turning a non-statutory code into a contractual obligation. That could be further enhanced if those landlords could also be convinced to write into their tenancy agreements that the Commissioner will be used to adjudicate on any issues of poor conduct that arise through the course of a tenancy and that the Commissioner’s adjudication would be binding. Those landlords taking that approach could be given some form of badge of recognition to identify that they are “code compliant”. Estates may also find it helpful to invite the Commissioner in to provide input in what a “code compliant” landlord and landlord’s agent looks like. Getting access to firms of land agents on the same basis would also be hugely beneficial.
No doubt, the Commissioner will have been in receipt of a raft of early cases that will need his careful and wise deliberation. Some of these cases will be long-standing and difficult. Indeed, the TFA is anticipating being involved in referring cases to the Commissioner to review. Although confidential, the way in which these early cases will be handled by the Commissioner will have a major influence over the extent to which the role will be seen as adding value.
Alongside issues of conduct, the Commissioner will also have a role to consider the way in which disputes are resolved within the landlord tenant sector in agriculture with a particular focus on arbitration. The TFA would like to see the Commissioner pulling together the principal organisations involved in dispute resolution to determine what improvements could be made to improve experience and consistency. It is vital that we see arbitration becoming less onerous, less expensive, quicker and more consistent. It is a huge limitation that individual arbitrators are not permitted to see or use the awards of other arbitrators to assist them in making better awards themselves. This system operates well within the courts, so it would be good to find a way to operate it within the realm of arbitration.
Towards the end of last year, the Law Commission launched its 14th programme of law reform placing agricultural tenancies at the top of the list of areas that it wants to look at. The TFA has enthusiastically welcomed this decision. With the Agricultural Holdings Act 1986 coming up to 40 years of age and the Agricultural Tenancies Act 1995 just 10 years behind, despite being tinkered with since their original enactment, they are well overdue a full review. The Law Commission review also fulfils a key recommendation from the Rock Review into agricultural tenancies which the TFA sees as continuing to provide a strong basis for delivering a sustainable agricultural tenanted sector.
The TFA has already been in touch with the Law Commission to set out what it sees as the areas of the current statute that need to be addressed including the definition of agriculture and the Rules of Good Husbandry, the ability of parties to contract into the provisions of the Agricultural Holdings Act 1986, the operation of statutory succession of tenancy and the regime of compensation payable to tenants in respect of a Notice to Quit for development.
This latter issue has been of keen concern to the TFA and its members not least due to the number of solar energy developments proposed across tenanted land. We regularly have members contact the TFA with news that their landlords are seeking planning consent for change of use of the land that they have farmed, often for many years, even many generations. When that occurs, depending on the nature of the agricultural tenancy, the landlord will be able to secure vacant possession of the holding, or the part of the holding involved, through notices to quit governed either by statute or contract. The statutory process for tenancies governed by the Agricultural Holdings Act 1986 will allow landlords to recover possession whilst getting away with paying only a maximum level of compensation amounting to 6 times the rent payable by the tenant for the land being removed. This rarely, if ever, comes close to covering the tenant’s actual loss.
The situation for tenants under Farm Business Tenancies, regulated by the Agricultural Tenancies Act 1995, is worse still. There is no statutory fallback position on compensation when a tenant loses land following a planning application obtained by the landlord for change of use which allows the landlord to use a contractual clause to remove land following such circumstances.
We were therefore hugely grateful, once again, to Baroness Kate Rock for raising these issues at the Report Stage of the Planning and Infrastructure Bill in the House of Lords in the autumn of last year. She tabled two crucial amendments which would have, if accepted, pegged the compensation payable at a level equivalent to the actual loss of tenant farmers losing land for development. Sadly, the Government refused to accept the amendments which was hugely disappointing, particularly given that the Government had said that, at least in respect of solar development, there was a need to ensure that compensation payable to tenant farmers was “adequate and fair”.
Despite the disappointment, Baroness Rock secured an important meeting with the Planning Minister in the House of Lords, Baroness Taylor and with DEFRA minister, Baroness Hayman. That meeting was attended by the TFA’s Chief Executive George Dunn who, along with Baroness Rock, made a robust case for Government action on this issue.
It is pleasing to report that there was agreement amongst all those present that this was a serious issue which needed proper consideration. However, it was felt that the correct arena for that consideration would be to use the forthcoming Law Commission review of agricultural tenancy legislation recently announced. Given that this review has not yet started and is likely to take at least two years to complete, after which there will need to be legislative time allocated to introduce any changes to statute, the Ministers agreed to look at whether there was any scope for amending statutory planning guidance to provide a better framework for tenant farmers to be compensated.
Whilst case law already directs that the planning process should take into account the impact of a development on occupiers who are not party to the planning application, it would be extremely helpful to have clear guidance about how those impacts should be addressed through compensation.
The task of producing the guidance has been given to the Farm Tenancy Forum to complete. Created as a response to one of the recommendations of the aforementioned Rock Review I have been pleased to represent the TFA on the forum having taken over from previous National Chair Mark Coulman. Unlike the Tenancy Reform Industry Group which was folded by previous DEFRA Secretary of State, George Eustice, the Farm Tenancy Forum has real traction within DEFRA with the Farming Minister, now Dame Angela Eagle MP, attending every meeting. Having recently been strengthened by the appointment of the Commissioner for the Tenant Farming Sector who is a standing member of the forum, its work involves ensuring that the full range of DEFRA policies takes into consideration their impact on the tenanted sector of agriculture. This is an extremely important and valuable conduit for the work that we do.
Despite the need to continue to press the Government for fiscal, legislative and regulatory change, it has been pleasing to see the extent to which landlords are beginning to look at utilising the full breadth of the freedom of contract offered by the Agricultural Tenancies Act 1995.
Take for example The Crown Estate. It was not many years ago that The Crown Estate saw very little value in its rural land. Indeed, its previous Chief Executive described farmland to our Chief Executive as a “vanilla asset” as she set about disposing of large swathes of its agricultural land. However, in more recent times, it has fallen back in love with this rural estate mainly, it has to be said, due to the significant natural capital benefits for the nation.
It was in September 2023 that the Crown Estate reached out to the TFA with a view to producing a groundbreaking environmental Farm Business Tenancy (EFBT) agreement which, after a further 15 months of discussion, was eventually agreed between the TFA and The Crown Estate early last year. The new eFBT agreement pushes us into new ground, takes risks in the way in which previous agreements didn’t and is not afraid of identifying and articulating grey areas and avoiding binary, the tenant shall and shall not, covenants.
The agreement takes an innovative position on contract drafting which will be an anathema to many lawyers who will want black-and-white and clear-cut clauses through their traditionally conservative approach to drafting documents. The TFA believes that this can only be viewed as a good thing. The approach to date has delivered only very restrictive, short-term agreements where the levers for change are in the hands, mainly, of landlords. This new approach being adopted by the Crown Estate will provide a more collegiate and collaborative basis for the landlord tenant relationship.
The eFBT works on the basis of a 15-year agreement without open-ended break clauses for the landlord but with break clauses available to the tenant if necessary. The agreement nails The Crown Estate colours to the mast of the agreed landlord and tenant code of practice for England which details the need for parties to focus on clarity, communication and collaboration. Those words are easier said than done but the manner of the drafting of the agreement does, in our view, deliver on those principles.
The agreement as would be anticipated, contains mechanisms for understanding how to measure biodiversity and carbon, their baselines and metrics for determining uplift. However, the agreement is explicit about working collaboratively with tenants to deliver environmental uplift and that the financial benefit, if any, of the uplift should be shared appropriately as between the landlord and the tenant.
Alongside the eFBT agreement, the ability for the landlord and the tenant to set out their joint environmental aspirations for the holding through what will be termed the Farm Green Book makes sure that there is clarity for both parties at the beginning of the tenancy about the environmental aspirations. Tenants are also to be actively encouraged to come forward with ideas for diversification and alongside the Farm Green Book there will be a Farm Partnership Book which will consider diversification, local engagement, education and public access and how the benefits of those might be shared as between the landlord and the tenant.
We were delighted that the Crown Estate was willing to seal the deal by offering us the ability in May of last year to hold a special conference at Windsor to launch the eFBT to our membership and more widely. I am grateful to the generosity of the Crown Estate for allowing us to have such a fabulous venue for our conference and we will be seeking to encourage other landlords to emulate that generosity for future events.
To follow up our May conference, The Crown Estate went one step further by inviting all of its tenant farmers to Windsor over two days in July to lay to rest the ill-judged policies of the past and to set a new course for the rural estate within which tenant farmers will play a central and important role. The Crown Estate’s current Chief Executive, Dan Labbad, took it upon himself to offer a personal apology for the lack of historic engagement with its tenant farmers and to outline his own personal determination that things would be done differently from here on in.
Other landlords too are looking at developing similar agreements including the Duchy of Cornwall, the Duchy of Lancaster and the Church Commissioners. Private landlords have also been in contact with the TFA to see whether it will be possible to use the principles of the eFBT as a template for their contractual relationships with their tenant farmers. We are pleased that at last we were seen real innovation in the way in which tenancy agreements are being drafted.
On wider policy fronts I must take the opportunity to refer to what has been happening with the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) in England and the Sustainable Farming Scheme (SFS) in Wales.
DEFRA’s decision to close SFI overnight in March of last year left many in the farming community feeling betrayed and frustrated. Although reopened later on a limited basis, in effect, the SFI has remained closed for a whole year.
At a basic level, DEFRA’s decision displayed extremely poor expectation management. The narrative since Brexit has been that the Government would, over time, move away from a scheme dominated by direct payments towards a broad-based public payments for public goods arrangement where farmers would be directly rewarded for the biodiversity, landscape and access they were delivering. Indeed, in setting out its stall, DEFRA said that it anticipated having 70% of farmers and 70% of farmland in SFI. However, with around 37,000 farmers declared by DEFRA to be in the scheme covering 50% of farmland, it has fallen a long way short of its targets.
It was the immediacy of the decision that hurt so much given that I know there were many farmers sitting down with their consultants ready to push the button on applications only to find their work had been fruitless.
Perhaps it was always going to be the case once no longer under the Governance of the European Union in respect of our farming schemes that British farmers would be more vulnerable to changes in domestic priorities. At the time the then DEFRA Minister, Daniel Zeichner was honest enough to say that in reality the farming industry does not rank highly on the Government’s pecking order. In the face of that, we shouldn’t be too surprised that we faced such precipitative action particularly in a world where the Government is facing issues over welfare spending, defence spending and heavy borrowing costs.
Of course, if it was simply the case that the money had run out and there was no new money available, there is very little we can do. Nevertheless, there is a need for DEFRA to be upfront about the figures. Out of the £2.4 billion of budget allocated for the full range of schemes under the Agricultural Transition Plan (ATP) we need to know how much has been allocated to each element including SFI, legacy and new stewardship schemes, Landscape Recovery, productivity schemes and capital grants. Against those budget headings it should be relatively straightforward for DEFRA to provide figures for actual committed expenditure against each of those headings.
After almost a year of discussion and debate and a new Ministerial team within DEFRA, it is pleasing to see that SFI will be available again later this year in two tranches. June for farmers below 50 ha or outside of current Environmental Land Management Schemes and September for everybody else. There had been much speculation and rumour around the discussions which we, and others, were undertaking with DEFRA. Many were fearing an extremely stripped back offering with much lower payment rates and reduced flexibility. Whilst there will be fewer options than SFI 2024, the remaining 71 options in this year’s scheme should provide a broad scope of opportunity for individuals to participate.
A significant concern of the TFA has been the extent to which large landowners had been able to game the SFI system by removing land from active farmers to take advantage of a seemingly open-ended scheme offer. The TFA therefore welcomed the tightening to be introduced in the 2026 scheme to avoid this both with the £100,000 payment cap and on individual limits on scheme options.
However, there is still uncertainty around the level of the available budget with discussions ongoing with DEFRA. The TFA expects that the June window will not be as demand hungry as the September opening for all farmers. It will be essential to ensure that there is sufficient budget available to meet the demand later in the year. DEFRA has promised to work with us on the budget which we welcome.
The Brexit vote of 2016 also provided a first opportunity for the devolved nations of the UK to get their hands on the levers of agricultural policy. From the outset, the Welsh Government set out its stall saying it was committed to building a “made in Wales” agricultural policy. It was always going to be the case that Welsh Government would want to move away from The Basic Payment Scheme (BPS) towards its own public payments for public goods scheme.
However, TFA Cymru has been resolute in its determination to ensure that the new scheme would be both practical and accessible for tenant farmers. Through our advocacy we have reached a position where the Welsh Government will not insist on any tenant farmer having to comply with any element of the Universal Actions of the new SFS where they are restricted in so doing, either by their tenancy agreements, or the legislation which governs them.
Additionally, TFA Cymru was successful in convincing the Welsh Government to allow rotational habitat options to contribute to the 10% habitat requirement, to make it as easy as possible for tenant farmers to be able to comply. We also secured a clear statement from the Deputy First Minister, on the record in the Senedd, that the Welsh Government would deem it to be “unreasonable” for landlords to restrict access to the scheme for tenant farmers. That statement is crucially important in the context of another win for the tenanted sector, secured by TFA Cymru, which was a legislative provision which allows farm tenants to formally object to their landlords’ unreasonable refusal to allow them access to the SFS, or any other Government financial assistance scheme.
Whilst TFA Cymru has worked hard to ensure that the coming change is as palatable as possible, change is never easy and the impact should never be underestimated. That is why we have called on the Welsh Government to instruct Rural Payments Wales (RPW) to take as light a touch as possible in its administration of the scheme. The SFS is a hugely more complex scheme than the BPS and time must be given to allow the farming community to get into its rhythm. TFA Cymru continues to be committed to its ongoing advocacy with Welsh Government on behalf of its members as experience with the scheme develops.
Whether it is our engagement with Government Ministers, Members of Parliament, Senedd Members, representatives of landlords, the media and a host of other industry organisations, the focus of the TFA is clear, to be an advocate on behalf of the landlord tenant system of agriculture and for the tenant farmers themselves. As your National Chair, I believe that the TFA has been tireless in its support of tenant farmers and it has been an honour to be at the helm of this great ship over the past two years. I am looking forward to my final year in role with great anticipation.
I know just how hard the small Head Office staff team in Brewery Court work on behalf of all our members. They truly leave no stone unturned to ensure that the needs and aspirations of tenant farmers are understood and addressed both on an individual basis and at sector level. Every day the staff team are focused on delivering wins for individual members and the wider tenanted sector. I thank each one of them for the tremendous work that they do and for the leadership of our Chief Executive who is about to clock up 30 years of service in that role for the TFA.
I want to thank all of those partner organisations that we work with to deliver benefit to our members especially our recommended surveyors, solicitors and accountants, many of whom have been with us on this journey for a long number of years.
Finally, none of this work would be possible without the dedication of those members who support us year in and year out. 82% of our annual income derives from our membership subscriptions. Each member is so important to the work that we do. The whole of the tenanted sector owes every TFA member a huge debt of gratitude, which they can show by joining with them to support our work.
-Ends-
11 March 2026
