New farming and food board raises questions over who gets a seat at the table

The Farming and Food Partnership Board - announced by Environment Secretary Emma Reynolds at the Oxford Farming Conference in January and flowing from Baroness Minette Batters' independent Farming Profitability Review - held its inaugural meeting on Wednesday 25 March. Chaired by Reynolds with Farming Minister Dame Angela Eagle as deputy chair, the board is intended to bring government and industry together to improve farm productivity and profitability, strengthen food system resilience and support national security. Its founding members are the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board, the Agricultural Industries Confederation, the British Retail Consortium, the Food and Drink Federation, the Institute of Grocery Distribution, the National Farmers' Union, and UK Hospitality.

The board's early work will centre on Sector Growth Plans, led by industry and co-designed with government. The first plan will cover horticulture - work on which has already been handed to the Horticulture Expert Growers Group - with poultry to follow this summer. Defra says these plans will identify barriers to growth and profitability, look at how costs and returns are shared across the supply chain, and consider how to increase domestic production. The board is expected to grow to up to 15 members, and at the first meeting members put forward names to fill the remaining places, which the Secretary of State will now consider. No terms of reference have yet been published; these will be agreed and published on GOV.UK, with a dedicated page expected in summer 2026.

The founding membership reflects the established mainstream of the food and farming industry - commodity bodies, major retailers, the NFU and the hospitality sector. Notably absent are voices from sustainable, agroecological and nature-friendly farming. Sustain understands that hundreds of expressions of interest were received for seats on the board, including from organisations representing the sustainable farming sector. The board's stated intention to use subgroups to widen participation offers one potential route in, but the detail of how those subgroups will work, who will be invited, and what influence they will carry remains to be set out.

Glen Tarman, Director of Policy and Advocacy at Sustain, said:

"A board that brings the whole food chain together around farm profitability and food security is a welcome idea, and we are glad to see horticulture at the top of the government’s agenda – that’s a direct response to the case that Sustain and our alliance partners have been making for years. But a board that draws its founding membership almost entirely from commodity agriculture and major retail is starting from a narrow base. The sustainable farming movement, nature-friendly growers, and organisations working on food system resilience have a great deal to contribute here. With seats still to fill and subgroups on the horizon, there is still time to get the right people in the room - and we will be pressing for that."

The board has invited the Horticulture Expert Growers Group to work with the Fruit & Veg Coalition, of which Sustain is a founding member, and the Environmental Horticulture Group to immediately begin work on the first Sector Growth Plan for the horticultural sector. 
 
Sector Growth Plans are aimed at identifying bespoke recommendations that will deliver growth for each sector. Work to scope the poultry plan is to follow this summer and there is significant concern that healthier diets and reducing reliance on intensive livestock production will not be sufficiently factored into the work on this by the board.

Read the Defra press release: Farming and food leaders unite to drive growth in British agriculture

Read the Defra Farming Blog: The first meeting of the Farming and Food Partnership Board

Find out more about the Sustain Sustainable Farming Campaign