Call for farmer insights into profitability challenges and opportunities

We need our farmers' voices

The Defra Secretary Estate has asked Lady Batters (former NFU President) to come forward with recommendations for how to improve farm profitability. In her call for evidence, Minette Batters has asked stakeholder to identify opportunities and barriers to profitability in farming. The Soil Association is responding to the review. They will be highlighting the specific issues around profitability in the organic sector, as well as the profitability challenges more widely facing farmers who are moving towards more agroecological approaches. These include reducing synthetic inputs, building soil health and the specific challenges around horticulture. We are also keen to highlight the need for farmers to have access to baseline data and ongoing monitoring.

What are your challenges to profitability?

Our aim is to highlight the profitability challenges that you as a farmer face, as well as suggestions for government action, and examples of how moving to an agroecological system has improved profitability.

Contact us

If you have suggestions for material we could include, please email policymail@soilassociation.org. Use the headline “Farm profitability review”. We will look for any common themes to include in our response. If you have specific suggestions for case studies, please flag these and we will come back for further information.

Many thanks in advance for your response. We hope that this review will help overcome some of the current profitability challenges in the organic sector and more widely, that face farmers on the journey to more agroecological approaches.

Find out more

Press release, published in April 2025: Former NFU President and farmer Baroness Minette Batters appointed by Defra to lead Farm Profitability Review