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Sustainable farming and food

We’re supporting farmers to switch to more sustainable farming practices.

Agriculture and the food value chain, play a significant role in tackling many of the UK’s sustainability challenges. Alongside food production, British farmers also maintain ~70% of the UK’s natural spaces and thereby have a key role to play in both protecting and restoring nature.

For the agricultural sector, being both sustainable and profitable can be a challenging balance.

As the UK’s biggest lender to agricultural businesses, we’re supporting farmers to switch to more sustainable farming practices to help them unlock increases in productivity, profitability, and ensure food security for our communities.

Our actions
 

We’re working with partners and experts to develop sustainable solutions for farmers.

Soil Association Exchange partnership

Through our ten-year partnership with the Soil Association Exchange, we have developed tools and services to provide consultancy support and guidance to farmers.

This includes advice on improving soil health, reducing carbon emissions, and improving biodiversity on their farms, while maintaining a focus on profitable food production.

SMI Agribusiness Transistion Hub

As a member of the Sustainable Markets Initiative (SMI) Agribusiness Transition Hub, we’re supporting activity that explores new finance mechanisms and models that can directly support UK farmers in moving to more sustainable practices.

Financial support

Our financial support for farmers made up almost of a third of all lending to the sector in 2023 alone. 

We provide discounted finance for initiatives to make farms more sustainable. Our Clean Growth Financing Initiative (CGFI) offers discounted green lending of £25,001 minimum for new or additional lending, when used to improve a business’s environmental impact.

 

Helping farmers thrive on their net zero journeys

Andrew Walton, Chief Sustainability Officer, shares his thoughts on how farmers can drive meaningful environmental change, while also ensuring they are financially successful and able to meet future food demands

Read Andrew's article Helping farmers thrive on their net zero journeys article

Our policy asks
 

As part of our long-standing support for the agricultural sector, we're calling on the UK Government to act. 

Farming is responsible for 11% of the UK’s pollution1, with most of this coming from natural processes, which are hard to reduce.

Decarbonisation is dependent on uptake of low carbon farming methods, improvement in agricultural productivity and changes in consumer behaviour.

Collaboration across the public and private sector is key to help farmers on their sustainability journey.

We’re calling on the Government to:

  • Back a standardised methodology for measuring farms’ environmental impact.
  • Develop a decarbonisation and nature strategy for agriculture that sets out, in one place, how we will deliver productivity, profitability and sustainability improvements together.
  • Collaborate with industry to overcome the barriers faced by farmers - including around the flows of finance which can help deliver changes, and provide fair rewards in return.

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