Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask His Majesty's Government whether they will undertake an assessment of the impact of the agricultural transition on food production and farm business viability.

We very recently published a detailed impact assessment of a long list of actions considered for inclusion in the Environmental Land Management schemes. Actions were rated against a large number of ecosystem services and their impact on food production. An executive summary is attached.

We have provided information on the potential impact of our farming reforms. For example, the farming evidence compendium was most recently updated in September 2022 and the Agriculture in the UK Dashboard was published in November 2023. These set out the contribution of Direct Payments to Farm Business Income, including analysis by sector, location in England and type of land tenure.’

We also publish regular statistics on farm profitability, agricultural productivity and food production, including a recent statistical publication (attached) looking at how Farm Business Income has changed since the start of the agricultural transition. This publication also provides an overview of changes to the Basic Payment Scheme and agri-environment payments.

As part of the agricultural transition, we monitor baskets of relevant metrics to maintain insights into general sector trends. The Government has recently committed to producing an annual Food Security Index to capture and present the key data to monitor food security.

We will of course continue to carry out appropriate timely assessments of our interventions to inform policy development.