Food Producers Need New Mind Set

A call has gone out for food producers to adopt a new mind set to be able to produce food sustainably and profitably.

A report for the Oxford Farming Conference this week, produced by consultancy Bidwells, says that the UK farming and food production sector has to be more open to changes in land management and must not solely consider that farmers must own the land they farm.

The report says that a mind set that is closed to new business structures, limited collaboration and a lack of investment in farm infrastructure is holding UK farming back.

In opening the conference co-chairman Adrian Ivory said that agriculture needs to play a part in the changing demographic of the world society that is seeing a larger population and changing eating habits.

In this relation the report produced for the conference Opportunity Agriculture: The Next Decade challenges farmers and farm business operators to think more widely about sources of capital and to explore agreements such as share farming or partnering with external investors.

“The context to this important research is that our farming sector has far-reaching opportunities, but it needs to adapt to profit from them,” said conference co-chairman Julian Gairdner.

He said that farm businesses need to adopt an openness and willingness to embrace change.

“It is likely that more transformation will happen in the UK farming industry in the next 10 years than we have seen in the past 50, so the industry needs to be prepared to adopt new systems, structures and partner investors, who understand agriculture.

“The report delivers some hard-hitting punches and, intentionally, it doesn’t hold back in spelling out the progress needed,” Mr Gairdner added.