Agriculture

Farmers must be innovative and keep progressing their businesses if they are to ride the current ‘storm’. That was the message heard by around 60 Norfolk and Suffolk farmers at the latest joint NFU/Lovewell Blake Farmers’ Evening in Halesworth.

Diversification has been key for farming businesses to remain sustainable; having a number of different income streams on the farm has helped many businesses navigate through external factors and changes in farm subsidy regimes.

Two major new planning initiatives will have a huge impact on farmers – offering both opportunities and challenges. That was the message heard by around 60 Norfolk and Suffolk farmers at the latest joint NFU/Lovewell Blake Farmers’ Evening in Halesworth.

From 6 April 2024, tax law is being changed resulting in the profits businesses are taxed on being brought in line with the tax year, rather than aligned with their accounting period.

Biodiversity Net Gain, Class Q and Local Development Plans, as well as land and estate management, will be the topics covered in the first joint NFU/Lovewell Blake Farmers’ Evening of 2024, which takes place next month.

A more joined-up approach to land use needs to be adopted if UK food security is to be protected, according to a leading agricultural finance expert.

How trees can benefit farm businesses will be the focus of the third joint NFU/Lovewell Blake Farmers’ Evening of 2023, which takes place next month.

The flexibility offered by the Sustainable Farming Initiative could enable farmers to ‘de-risk’ their operations in 2024, following a challenging harvest this year, according to a leading agricultural finance expert.

Farmers face an increasing imperative to be able to measure and evidence their natural capital.

Natural capital from a farmer’s perspective is the focus of the second joint NFU/Lovewell Blake Farmers’ Evening of 2023, which takes place later this month.

Farmers in Norfolk and Suffolk were told that the country’s leading farming welfare charity is planning to expand its support – as a new survey revealed that nearly half the UK’s farmers are feeling a level of anxiety, with over a third experiencing feelings of depression.

Farmers currently manage water to produce food, create jobs and drive economic growth as well as meet their environmental obligations. So, what happens when the supply dries up?

Over 300 farmers, producers and supporting industry professionals are expected to attend the 2022 Norfolk Farming Conference in November, when speakers will include deputy president of the NFU Tom Bradshaw, professor of Economic Policy at the University of Oxford Sir Dieter Helm, and chairman of the Norfolk Strategic Flooding Alliance General The Lord Dannatt.

An ‘unholy alliance’ of pressures on costs means that farmers need to put in place anti-inflation strategies, says Justin Wright of Lovewell Blake’s specialist Agriculture team.

Farming has to attract more British residents to work in the sector, work together to drive up prices and watch the cashflow to survive the supply chain crisis

With the existing area-based payments being halved by 2024 on the way to being fully abolished by 2028, Environment Secretary George Eustice has already told farmers that the future of subsidies will be through Environmental Land Management Schemes.

Last year the Prime Minister laid out a ten-point plan for a “green industrial revolution” to aid the UK Government’s Net Zero greenhouse gas emissions target by 2050.