2024 Farm to Fork summit key announcements by Defra

We've summarised many of the announcements below.

Food security index:

• The first draft of the security index allows the Government, industry and farmers to monitor the impact of external factors, such as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine or extreme adverse weather events.
• It means food security can be tracked, UK-wide, on an annual basis, with domestic food production, land use, input costs and farmer productivity monitored.
• Downing Street said this year’s index highlights that currently the UK produces the equivalent of just 17 per cent of the fruit and 55 per cent of the vegetables that end up on British plates, significantly lagging behind meat, dairy and grains.

Blueprint for the UK fruit and vegetable sector:

• Access to affordable, sustainable energy and water.
• Cutting planning red tape to make it easier and quicker to build glasshouses, including a review of outstanding planning barriers.
• A consultation on permitted development rights for small-scale single on-farm wind turbines.
• Developing a new horticulture resilience and growth offer to replace the EU retained scheme.
• Doubling to £80m the amount of funding given to horticulture businesses when compared to the EU legacy Fruit and Vegetable Aid Scheme which will be replaced from 2026 onwards. This will include up to £10m to help English orchard growers access equipment, technology and infrastructure.
• A commitment to introducing regulations to improve fairness in the fresh produce supply chain.
• Work to explore support for long term cold storage of crops.
• A £15m Farm Gate Food Waste Fund to help industry ensure good food makes its way to people rather than going to animal feed or anaerobic digestion, launching on May 31.
• Increased support for packhouse automation of up to £50m to boost productivity.

READ MORE | Farm to Fork summit measures welcomed by industry leaders

Wet weather:

• Temporary adjustments for farmers and land managers where the wet weather has led to difficulties carrying out requirements of Environmental Land Management Schemes.
• Providing £75m to support internal drainage boards.

Animal health:

• A new Endemics Disease Scheme with over £72m of funding to help eradicate bovine viral diarrhoea (BVD) in cattle, control porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome (PRRS) in pigs and tackle a range of different health conditions in sheep.
• An infrastructure grant for laying hens with over £20m of funding. The laying hen housing for health and welfare grant will offer grants of between £5,000 and £500,000 to help laying hen and pullet farmers to improve the health, welfare and productivity of their flocks.
• Removing the 16-week derogation period for the labelling of free-range eggs produced by hens that are under mandatory housing orders due to avian influenza.

Meat:

• Support of £3m for new and mobile abattoirs through the Farming Investment Fund.
• A commitment to laying a Statutory Instrument to introduce a mandatory scheme for sheep carcase classification and price reporting, and the use of automated classification systems for the sheep sector.

Supply chains:

• Regulations to ensure that there are written agreements between producers and buyers in the egg and fresh produce supply chains.
• Regulations to improve fairness in the pig sector as soon as possible through written contracts.
• Richard Thompson has been appointed as the agricultural supply chain adjudicator to oversee the enforcement of Fair Dealing regulations.

Tenant farmers:

• A commissioner for the tenant farming sector (CTFS) will be appointed this autumn, providing neutral and confidential advice for tenants, landlords and advisors who have concerns about poor behaviour and complaints that the code of practice on responsible conduct is not being followed. The CTFS will also investigate complaints to help resolve issues between landlords and tenants before they escalate to more formal dispute processes.