Creating opportunities for tenant farmers in a changing farming landscape is the theme of a national conference being hosted by the NFU recently.
With more than 60% of England’s farmed area managed by tenant farmers, industry leaders, experts, institutional landlords and tenant farming members will come together at NFU Stoneleigh Headquarters to discuss the future of the sector at the NFU’s Tenants Conference being chaired by NFU Deputy President David Exwood and attended by Farming Minister Sir Mark Spencer.
NFU Deputy President David Exwood said: “Tenant farmers are some of the most dynamic and forward-thinking farmers I know. I am a tenant farmer myself and we play a vital role in producing food for the nation while delivering the government’s environmental targets, helping to grow the rural economy and being at the heart of rural communities.
“Just like all other sectors, tenant farmers across the country are feeling the squeeze; the cumulative loss of direct payments over the past four years and the slow transition to the Environmental Land Management scheme (ELMs), together with high input costs have created real cashflow issues. However, as tenants we don’t often have the financial capital to pivot to embrace new opportunities in the same way as non-tenant farmers, which leaves us particularly vulnerable.
“By working together, we can and must create new opportunities for tenant farmers which will help us to deliver a robust, vibrant, and thriving agricultural tenanted sector for the future.”