Defending small farms
Darren Roberts
Here in the UK I am often told small farms are not viable - usually in the reviewers comments of a grant application. This mindset is now moving from an opinion to a strategy with the recent report on Farm Profitability supporting this view. As a result, the 2026 Sustainable Farming Incentive funding is only available to farms over 3 ha in size. In the UK 14% of all farms are below 5 ha in size. This is taking support from small family farms at a time when it is most needed.
Is it true small farms are not viable or do we not value the additional yields of small farms? Viability is assessed on volume of food produced per area of land and therefore on monetary turnover. All farms, no matter their size, are assessed using the same criteria. This reflects the current lack of understanding by the UK government and the general public of what small farms contribute and the false assumption that volume represents viability.
The "efficiency" trap
The current system is heavily biased towards large intensive farms as current thinking sees them as efficient. In other words, they can use expensive modern equipment and machinery and often have high value contracts with supermarkets or other bulk purchasers. However, the high income is associated with high costs. To justify investing hundreds of thousands of pounds in equipment farmers must maximise the efficiency of the machinery. This drive for efficiency leads to mono-cropping to save money by investing in only one set of equipment and to prevent time being wasted changing machinery or attachments which in turn results in soil destruction in large uniform fields. Large farms are tied into contracts with feed manufacturers and chemical companies for pesticides, herbicides and fertilisers. This means large farms can negotiate lower prices for inputs but combined with supply contracts with supermarkets the same farms are often also squeezed on prices driving them further and further along the path of “efficiency”. Crucially, this results in large farms being highly vulnerable to supply chain disruption in both directions.
Small farms however often have to purchase feed, fertilisers and sprays as needed. They are more likely to be supplying smaller local outlets, selling direct to the public at farmers’ markets or, at the farm gate. Small farms are therefore much more flexible and can adapt rapidly to changes in the business environment or, cost pressures. But small farms will pay more for supplies and have the same regulatory burden as large farms. Some of this can be offset by higher profit margins arising from a shorter supply chain - no wholesaler’s profit margin. But consumers will still compare prices with supermarket special offers. This places an unfair financial burden on small farms.
Small farms are also limited by the equipment available. Machinery which will be cost effective if used 20+ hours a week may only be used for 1 hour on a small farm - leaving small farms reliant on older equipment which require more maintenance and fuel. This makes it easier to dismiss small farms as being less efficient and therefore not viable but these are the circumstances driving small farmers to be more innovative. Old equipment must be repaired on site requiring practical skills and wide-ranging knowledge. These same skills can be used to solve problems around the farm. These innovative solutions are shared between local farmers spreading them throughout the local community. This same ingenuity is applied to changes to feed, treatments, sprays etc. making small farms ideal testbeds for new methods and ideas. This is evidenced in the rate regenerative farming practices have been adopted by small farms.
Value versus money
Looking at these non-monetary benefits, it is clear small farms are invaluable, not only to the food system, but throughout local communities. The inability to afford large equipment results in smaller fields with hedgerows or drystone walls acting as wildlife corridors. Smaller fields result in a higher proportion of the land being sheltered by boundaries. The use of smaller equipment, or hand, to work fields results in small features remaining where they would be ripped out in the name of efficiency and cost effectiveness on a large farm. These small features provide valuable microclimates and sites for ground nesting birds or small animals to hide. This, combined with the need for more hedgerows or drystone walls to enclose these smaller fields, results in higher biodiversity, resilience to climate change and flood prevention.
This reality has now started to be recognised by central government with funding for maintaining drystone walls and hedgerows and similar actions aimed at increasing biodiversity available via the Sustainable Farming Incentive and similar schemes. The budgets available for these schemes are however often rapidly depleted by large farms and can have unintended consequences on the wider farming community. These large farms may be applying for herbal lays on a larger area than a small farm but this may be isolated in a sea of mono-cropped fields as opposed to being connected to other small areas via a network of walls and hedgerows across multiple small farms. The recent funding for winter bird food was taken up widely across arable farms but the sheep bred on small upland farms which were normally fattened overwinter on the stubble suddenly had nowhere to go. These funds require careful implementation and need to be adaptable to minimise such unintended consequences. Actions such as having a monthly budget as opposed to an annual budget would allow the scheme to be fine-tuned and optimise the benefit the scheme is designed to provide.
Policy confusion?
A reduction in the number of small farms has meant a loss of many traditional farming methods, and with it the knowledge behind such methods. Some of these methods and knowledge are now returning under the guise of regenerative agriculture. Studies have shown farms using regenerative agriculture are hotspots of biodiversity and carbon sinks with significantly healthier soils. This is even more rewarding when a farm adopts a permaculture model. The key element of both regenerative agriculture and permaculture is maximising all profits of a farm (not just monetary), minimising waste, being resilient and adapting quickly to changes.
When it comes to animal welfare, is it not better to support those farms where the livestock can be seen from the farmhouse multiple times a day rather than making a special journey to check on livestock on the more remote areas of the farm? Small farms also tend to be more diverse and already part way along the permaculture or regenerative journey. This may not be apparent on paper but, in reality, they will tend to have a few chickens (more often than not heritage breeds) for eggs, maybe a couple of pigs for the family and other farming interests. There are often many of these additions providing valuable yields, but in the eyes of government they are “too small to measure” and they go unnoticed by the public who have had no opportunity to engage with the farmer. On larger farms all this will have been sacrificed in the name of efficiency. In fact, most of the work will be done by labourers or contractors in the same way factories in other industries operate.
This all flies in the face of the stated aims of government policies around farms and farming i.e. increased biodiversity, preservation of heritage breeds, innovation and many other stated aims. These are delivered primarily by small farms rather than the large mega-farms developed over recent decades. As we have seen in recent years large farms are incredibly vulnerable to disruption. Flooding spreads easily across large flat fields and farms are reliant on large volumes of feed and chemicals shipped via a global supply chain. Large equipment is reliant on large amounts of fuel and combined with long supply chains (both to and from the farm) disruption to oil supplies has a massive impact on production.
The shorter supply chain of small farms means there is less disruption to distribution. Many jobs can be done by hand or with minimal equipment. They can adapt quickly, livestock can be moved to drier land, some fodder can be grown at home, numbers of livestock can be changed quickly – all in contrast to huge farms.
Where is the "joined up thinking?"
Do we need to redefine the categories of farms? In no other industry is a company defined by the space it takes up. They are usually defined by either number of employees or turnover, - why should farms be different? Should we redefine intensive farms, using intensive methods, as agricultural factories? We would be providing clarity to the public around where their food came from. We could provide support appropriate to the farming methods used. Agricultural factories will always be needed to feed the ever growing population and could benefit from robotics and data capture systems allowing increases in efficiency to reduce their impact.
Rather than comparing them directly to the more destructive agricultural factories, smaller farms would benefit from support to offset the costs associated with all of the additional social and environmental benefits they supply.
This would support farms providing “public goods” and also support local sustainable food networks whilst educating the public about the nature of the places that their food is coming from. Consumers would have the same choice of purchasing food produced on farms or in agricultural factories just as people have the choice purchasing factory produced goods or hand-crafted artisan goods. This clarity would substantially level the playing field across all sectors of farming and provide small farms everything that they have asked for all along – a fair deal and a fighting chance.
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