By: Dr Andrea Graham, NFU Head of Policy Services
August 26, 2019
Over the next 20 years, the UK farming industry will undergo significant changes in policy, markets and consumer demand, the likes of which haven’t been seen since the introduction of the 1947 Agriculture Act. It is a time of challenge but also a time of great potential opportunity.
To help build a vision of what our industry will look like in 2040, what macro trends we can expect to see emerge, and what this means for British food and farming, we have produced this report which contains a high level scan of the horizon and its impact on the sector. The aim is to provide useful insights to help British farming gain a head start to adapt and evolve, as well as anticipate those opportunities so they can be developed to the full.
The prospect of taking such a leap into the future was, at first, quite daunting given the uncertainty of Brexit in the immediate future which, depending on the outcome, has the potential to change the trajectory dramatically for individual businesses and our industry as a whole. However, what was striking was that during the many expert interviews undertaken to shape this report, the focus quickly shifted away from the immediacy of Brexit to the macro global challenges for the future of food.