Cheap Food, Profitable Farming and Sustainability: a Structural Contradiction in UK Agriculture
A recent DEFRA newsletter included the following statement:
“Backing farmers with a new era of partnership to boost farmprofitability. Our farmers are essential for the nation’s food security, theEnvironment Secretary has said, setting out a new era of partnership betweengovernment and farmers aimed at boosting profitability. Speaking at the 2026Oxford Farming Conference, Environment Secretary Emma Reynolds announced apackage of measures to ensure the government works in partnership with farmersto drive growth, secure a thriving future for the sector, and deliverhigh-quality, affordable food for British families. We recognise that whenBritish farming thrives, consumers benefit through affordable, high-qualityfood on their tables. We’re ensuring modern British agriculture is productive,profitable and sustainable.”
What appears to be said vs what is actually said
On the surface:
- “Backing farmers”
- “A new era of partnership”
- “Boosting farm profitability”
- “High-quality, affordable food”
- “Productive, profitable and sustainable agriculture”
In reality: None of the mechanisms by whichprofitability would actually be delivered are mentioned.
There is:
- no reference to farm-gate prices
- no reference to supermarket buying power
- no reference to processor margins
- no reference to supply-chain reform
- no reference to risk transfer back down the chain
“Partnership” is invoked rhetorically, but the underlyingpower imbalance remains untouched. That omission is not accidental.
The real message beneath the words
Despite the language used, the underpinning message isclear: the government wants British agriculture to continue providing cheapfood. Politically, it has to. Food prices are central to controlling inflationand the cost of living.
This has been the millstone around farming’s neck since thedismantling of the food marketing boards in the twentieth century —institutions that existed to pay farmers a fair price and make agricultureeconomically sustainable.
By the latter part of that century, European agriculture(including Britain) was producing too much food. Marketing boards weredisbanded, and responsibility for food distribution shifted to supermarkets.Supermarkets competed aggressively on price for the British consumer whileensuring their own profitability, share price performance, and executivestability.
For governments, this system worked. By “leaving it to thesupermarkets”, food was distributed nationally while inflation and the cost ofliving were kept down. The political objective was achieved.
The unspoken policy logic farmers already understand
The primary objective here is not agricultural resilience —it is inflation control.
The implicit logic chain is simple:
- Government must keep food inflation low
- Cheap food is politically stabilising
- Supermarkets become the delivery mechanism
- Supermarkets compete on price
- Price pressure is pushed down the supply chain
- Farmers absorb volatility and margin loss
- Farmers industrialise to survive
- Environmental damage is treated as a separate issue
This model has worked politically, but not systemically.
Once the marketing boards were removed, farming stoppedbeing a protected public good and became a price-taker industry.
As farm-gate prices fell and margins were slashed, farmerswere forced to increase productivity through scale, efficiency and thecommercial industrialisation of farming. That pressure has never gone away.
This is the very mechanism the Environment Secretary is nowimplicitly asking the food supply chain to continue. British agriculture isrecognised as producing high-quality food, yet there is no encouragement — asthere would be in almost any other industry — to ensure a value added price ispaid for that quality.
Cheap food or sustainable agriculture — choose one
Since the 1980s, environmental groups, the media andconsumers have rightly highlighted the environmental consequences of industrialfarming. But farmers have been forced to focus on increasing production andreducing costs simply to survive.
At some point, the question becomes unavoidable:
Do we want cheap food, or do we want sustainable agricultureas under the current system, the two do not naturally coexist.
The land squeeze no one wants to talk about
By 2050, UK agriculture is expected to lose over 7 millionhectares of the 17 million hectares available in 2019.
This loss is driven by:
- housing and infrastructure
- tree planting
- solar farms
- leisure developments
- corporate carbon offsetting
- rewilding projects
At the same time, the population is forecast to approach 80million.
British farming is therefore being asked to:
- produce more food
- on less land
- at lower prices
- to higher standards
- while being environmentally sustainable
That is not a strategy — it is a stress test.
Why government incentives fall short
Schemes such as the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) dopay farmers to adopt environmentally beneficial practices. However, they do notreform the economics of food production. As a result, sustainability remainsfragile under commercial pressure.
Quality, profitability and sustainability are still nottreated as a single, integrated objective. Sustainability is widely viewed as acost rather than an investment, and when profitability is squeezed — by poorharvests, extreme weather or volatile markets — it is the first thing to becut.
What government incentives don’t do:
- Sustainability ≠ profitability (yet) Payments do not reflect transition risk Regenerative practices take years, patience and confidence Outcomes are not rewarded — only actions There is no link to food price reform
- One-size-fits-all logic Standards struggle to adapt to: soil type and aspect climate and location cropping vs livestock systems tenant farming constraints individual farmer mindset, age and attitude
- Sustainability remains optional In poor years, SFI actions are deprioritised Regeneration is not embedded in core business models
The uncomfortable truth is that SFI was never designed to“fix farming”. It was designed to:
- cushion the removal of the Basic Payment Scheme (BPS)
- buy environmental improvement cheaply
- avoid politically difficult food price reform
- shift risk onto farmers while appearing supportive
That doesn’t make it useless — but it does make itinsufficient.
Why regenerative farming struggles to scale
Regenerative farming does not fail because farmers don’tcare. It fails because it is not embedded as a profitability strategy.
Key realities:
- Farming decisions are pragmatic, not ideological
- Cashflow, risk and timing dominate behaviour
- One-size-fits-all models do not work
- Local context always matters
Without long-term confidence, measurement and iteration,regenerative farming remains:
- fragmented
- personality-led
- undercapitalised
- vulnerable to shocks
This is not a failure of will — it is a failure of systemdesign.
The way forward
Sustainable agriculture cannot succeed if it is treated asan environmental add-on rather than a commercial strategy.
Farmers are not opposed to sustainability; they are opposedto unmanageable risk. When margins are thin and volatility is high, survivalcomes first. That is not negligence — it is realism.
Quality, profitability and sustainability are not opposingforces. They align only when sustainability is recognised as a long-terminvestment in productivity, resilience and soil function — not a cost to beabsorbed at the farm gate.
There is no single blueprint. Progress comes from taking thefirst step, measuring what works, refining it, and embedding it into a livingsystem that serves the farm, the farmer and future generations.
As Lao Tzu observed:
“The journey of a thousand miles begins with a singlestep.”
Ultimately, only agriculture can “feed the world and savethe planet” — but it can only do that if regenerative agriculture is a profitmaking strategy rather than a fluffy environmental nice to have.
