Minette Batters’ farming profitability report outlines proposals for overcoming sectors’ challenges

There is no “silver bullet” to achieving farming profitability, according to Baroness Minette Batters’ long awaited review into the profitability of farming in England – but a holistic planned approach that values farming would give its future the best fighting chance.

Mark Charter, Partner in Thrings’ Agriculture team, takes a look at the report and what its recommendations could mean for farming businesses.

The report

Commissioned against a challenging backdrop, with many farmers facing rising input costs, pressure on margins, labour shortages and uncertainty as direct payments continue to reduce, the review explores a number of areas in which the government can help farming overcome its mounting challenges to become more resilient and profitable.

While not seeking to introduce new law, the review led by Baroness Batters, a former president of the NFU, aims to shape future policy and support schemes by identifying practical changes that could improve farm profitability across different sectors – a topic that she touched on as this year’s keynote speaker for Thrings’ Annual Agriculture Seminar.

The review culminates in a comprehensive list of 57 recommendations, split below into eight key themes:

Improving farm business management and decision-making

Aiming to support more confident, evidence-based decision-making, recommendations under this theme propose:

• Expanding access to farm benchmarking tools so farmers can compare performance against similar businesses.
• Improving the quality, consistency and accessibility of farm business data
• Encouraging routine business planning and cashflow forecasting.
• Supporting better use of digital tools to understand costs, margins and returns.
• Helping farmers assess whether enterprises are genuinely profitable or subsidised by other activities.

Skills, training and access to advice

With a focus on helping farmers turn advice into action, the review recommends:

• Better coordination of independent business and technical advice.
• Clearer signposting to existing advisory services.
• Greater emphasis on business, financial and leadership skills, not just technical farming knowledge.
• Support for peer-to-peer learning and farmer discussion groups.
• Improving take-up of advice by reducing complexity and building trust.
• The focus is on helping farmers turn advice into action.

Fairness and transparency in supply chains

A number of recommendations are aimed at improving farmers’ confidence and bargaining position, including:

• Stronger use of existing powers to improve fairness in contracts.
• Greater transparency around pricing mechanisms and deductions.
• Clearer contract terms, including termination rights and notice periods.
• Improved enforcement of supply chain rules.
• Easier access to dispute resolution without fear of retaliation

Access to finance, investment and risk management

The review recommends placing emphasis on giving businesses confidence to invest in the future by:

• Improving access to affordable finance for productivity and environmental investment.
• Encouraging lenders to better understand agricultural business models.
• Supporting tools to manage income volatility and risk.
• Promoting long-term investment planning rather than short-term decision-making.
• Encouraging collaboration where it improves access to capital.

Making environmental schemes work for farm businesses

Stressing that environmental delivery must support business visibility, the recommendations include:

• Simplifying environmental schemes so they are easier to understand and access.
• Making payments more predictable and timely.
• Ensuring schemes provide a genuine income stream, not just cost recovery.
• Aligning environmental options with productive farming where possible.
• Improving scheme flexibility to reflect local conditions.

Collaboration, cooperation and new business models

In order to improve farming efficiency, scale and strength, the recommendations suggest the government should:

• Encourage producer groups, cooperatives and joint ventures.
• Support shared use of machinery, labour and infrastructure.
• Improve routes to market through collaboration.
• Reduce barriers to farmers working together across holdings.
• Share best practice on successful collaborative models.

Regulation, inspection and administrative burden

In order to lower stress and cost without reducing standards, several recommendations focus on:

• Reducing duplication between inspections and regulators.
• Improving consistency in enforcement and interpretation of rules.
• Making compliance requirements clearer and easier to follow.
• Using risk-based approaches rather than blanket checks.
• Reducing unnecessary paperwork and administrative cost.

Data, evidence and future policy development

This final grouping of recommendations underpins the long-term direction of farming policy by proposing:

• Improving data collection on farm performance and profitability.
• Using real-world evidence to shape future support schemes.
• Monitoring what actually improves profitability over time.
• Testing policy changes before rolling them out widely.
• Ensuring feedback from farmers informs future decisions.

Mark Charter, Partner in Thrings’ Agriculture team, said: “This review reflects a deep understanding of the real pressures facing farming businesses, grounded in the day-to-day reality of farming rather than theory. It’s clear that Baroness Batters has taken a great deal of time to listen to farmers and the wider industry, putting their voice at the centre of the process.