Farming in transition: Sustain brings the big farming questions to Groundswell 2026

2026 is a pivotal year for food and farming policy. With the 25-Year Farming Roadmap just out, the Land Use Framework published, the Food Strategy still in development, and sector growth plans taking shape, the decisions made now will shape UK farming for a generation. So if you’re at Groundswell this year, make sure the Big Top is in your diary on Thursday – this is the session where those decisions get put on the table.

Sustain is teaming up with Groundswell to host a flagship panel discussion, Farming in Transition: Building a fair and sustainable future. 

Event details

• Session: Farming in transition: Building a fair and sustainable future
• Date: Thursday 2 July 2026
• Time: 1–2pm
• Venue: Big Top
• Organised by: Sustain, in partnership with Groundswell

Why this is the session to be at

This is the moment to seize the opportunities for a stronger and better UK agri-food sector that delivers on health, environment, and resilient food supply.

Every farmer at Groundswell is living with the same uncertainty: a Farming Roadmap that has just landed, a Land Use Framework reshaping what land is for, and a Food Strategy still being written. Behind the policy documents are real questions about whether any of it adds up to a transition farmers can actually build a future on. This panel puts those questions directly to the people with the insight to answer them.

We’ll be putting key questions to our panel – and to the room:

• Is current policy from Defra and beyond delivering the transition farmers need?
• What needs to happen on policy and in politics between now and 2030?
• What does regenerative agriculture need from the new Prime Minister – and are we, as a sector, influential enough to get better and faster action from those that lead the government?

Who’s on the panel

We’ve brought together people who sit at very different points in the system – a campaigning CEO, a farming-network leader, a major landowner, and the MP who chairs Parliament’s farming watchdog – chaired by one of farming journalism’s sharpest interviewers:

• Kath Dalmeny, CEO of Sustain: the alliance for better food and farming
• Martin Lines, CEO of the Nature Friendly Farming Network
• Will Bax, Secretary and Keeper of the Records (CEO), Duchy of Cornwall
• Alistair Carmichael MP, Chair of the House of Commons Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (EFRA) Select Committee
• Chaired by Andrew Meredith, Editor of Farmers Weekly

Why Sustain is hosting this

Sustain is an alliance of over 100 national public interest organisations campaigning for agroecological farming and better routes to market in the UK. We want to see a food system that moves towards farming methods that work with nature, providing healthy, affordable food grown to high standards – while food producers receive a fair price and workers the real living wage. As a trusted, independent convenor in food and farming policy, our role is to make sure that vision, and the voice of the farming community behind it, is heard directly by the people making these decisions. Few moments matter more than this one.

DON’T MISS IT

Head to the Big Top at 1pm on Thursday 2 July. Come with your questions – this is a discussion, not a lecture, and the panel wants to hear from the floor.

See you in the Big Top.