Farming lies at the heart of the most pressing environmental challenges of our age. It feeds populations, sustains rural economies, and dominates vast tracts of land globally. Yet, its footprint extends deep into our soils, water bodies, biodiversity, carbon emissions, and the ability of ecosystems to withstand shocks.
We cannot look to just one outcome when imagining the future of agriculture. Increasing output at the expense of the natural resources agriculture relies on is a dead end. Nor is safeguarding the natural world, while ignoring food needs, farmers’ welfare, and the business case for farming, a viable path either.
What we need instead is equilibrium. Agriculture must generate food, nourish rural society, nurture habitats, cut greenhouse gases, withstand climatic change, and become more land efficient. Agriculture is not apart from nature: it is one of the ways in which humans engage with the natural world.
Farming is not just about food
Growing food for human consumption may be the most evident function of agriculture, but it is certainly not the sole function.
Farms are embedded in wider landscapes and they interact with water quality, soil health, carbon sequestration, wildlife habitats, pollination, natural pest control, flood risk, and the rural economy. All those fields and hedgerows, grasslands and wetlands, woodlands, rivers and farm tracks, all contribute to how the landscape performs.
This is why the future of agriculture hangs on the choices we make about how land is used and managed. Land is not just the surface area on which to grow food, it is a dynamic resource, storing carbon, filtering water, providing habitat for wildlife, and delivering social and cultural benefits. Seeing land as an environmental resource should mean we think about agriculture policy differently.
Instead of asking how much food can be produced on a particular hectare of land, the question should be what else can a hectare of land do? Is that hectare protecting soil, providing pollination, mitigating flooding, storing carbon, supporting a rural economy?
The productive farm and the healthy environment should be viewed as partners, not opponents.
What about the biodiversity issue?
While it is not always visible, agriculture needs biodiversity.
Pollinators are essential for many crops, as soil life is to the productivity and structure of soils, and as predatory insects, birds and other species are for managing pest pressure. Similarly, wetlands and the riparian zone play crucial roles in filtering water and draining runoff.
If biodiversity is lost, part of agriculture’s infrastructure and resilience is lost with it. The future of farming therefore has to be a future that conserves, protects and enhances the natural environment, habitats, species and ecosystem services. Biodiversity should not exist solely beyond the farm gate, but also within the agricultural landscape.
That does not imply that farms have to become nature reserves, but that agricultural systems need to allow for and enable the delivery of ecosystem services and habitat functions.
Practical ways to support biodiversity on farmland include:
- Maintaining hedgerows and field margins;
- Creating flower-rich strips for pollinators;
- Using mixed cropping and crop rotations;
- Supporting agroforestry and tree cover;
- Lowering unnecessary pesticide use;
- Restoring wetlands and riparian zones;
- Improving soil cover and grassland management.
Climate change is shifting the parameters
We are already seeing the impact climate change is having on the agricultural sector. Farming is getting tougher. Rising temperatures, erratic rainfall, intense droughts and floods, scorching heat, emerging pests and an increasingly unpredictable growing season will make farming far more difficult in many regions in future.
As such, agriculture will also have to become climate-resilient. This may include switching to crop varieties that can better withstand the climate of tomorrow, better water management, improved soil structure, providing shelter for livestock, diversifying production, adopting early warning systems and building in more flexible planning.
Agriculture also has a vital role to play in delivering the climate solution. It can play a role in cutting emissions through improved nutrient management, more sustainable livestock systems, energy efficiency, better soil management, agroforestry, restoring valuable natural habitats with high carbon potential, and tackling food loss and food waste.
This links our farming systems directly to the broader climate and energy transition. Energy use, fertiliser production, land management, food processing and transport are all integral elements of the climate impact of our food.
A food system blind to the climate risks that it faces will become a more insecure one. Equally, a climate action strategy that ignores the role that agriculture must play in climate protection will always be incomplete.
Soil health as a foundation
Soil is one of the most important assets in agriculture. However, soil is also a resource that is too often undervalued.
Good soil is healthy soil. It can sustain crop growth, store carbon, retain and filter water, cycle nutrients and provide habitat for countless animals and microbes. Bad soil is vulnerable to erosion, compaction, drought and nutrient loss.
Healthy soil has to be a cornerstone of future agricultural policy and planning. It means a transition to more sustainable management, cover crops, reduced and selective tillage, incorporating organic matter, crop rotations, compost, managed grazing, agroforestry and avoiding unnecessary soil disturbance.
Soil connects food production to climate and biodiversity goals. Stronger soil structure and better soil management allow for greater water retention. Improved soil carbon storage can be achieved by greater incorporation of organic matter into soils.
Less dependence on high-risk inputs
A modern farm is a complex system that relies heavily on inputs. This includes fertilisers, pesticides, fuel, imported feed and so on. It is not that these inputs have no value for agriculture. They do. They help support the production of food and other agricultural products. But at the same time, this reliance makes agriculture vulnerable to environmental pressures and economic shocks.
Excessive fertiliser use has been linked to water pollution, eutrophication, and nitrous oxide emissions. Poorly managed pesticides may also impact the health of ecosystems, pollinators, invertebrates and other organisms they are meant to protect. Reliance on fuel leaves the agriculture sector at the mercy of fluctuating energy prices.
The road to a more resilient farming system means using inputs more carefully, more efficiently and more judiciously. Policy and planning need to support farmers who are willing to reduce environmental risks from pesticides and tackle the drivers of over-use, as well as those who want to improve nutrient management and embrace practices that cut the need to rely on artificial inputs.
Integrated pest management, precision application, crop rotations, the use of biological control and enhanced crop monitoring can all play a role in cutting back on inputs. In an ideal system, inputs would be used only if required rather than out of habit.
This also has wider links to pollution and chemical pressures, in that agricultural inputs do not stop at the field boundary.
Water to be defining issue
In the years to come, water will likely become the most important limiting factor on agriculture.
Some agricultural regions will become increasingly susceptible to drought and water scarcity. Others will face heavy precipitation, flooding and soil erosion. Agriculture will need to become more adept at holding water when it is available and making the most of it when water is scarce.
This requires investing in soils, landscape elements, irrigation efficiency, water storage, wetland conservation, floodplains and crop choices compatible with the local environment.
Agriculture can also impact water quality through nutrient runoff, pesticide residues, sediment loads and livestock faeces, putting pressure on rivers, lakes, wetlands and groundwater and making better farming practices vital for freshwater and river protection.
A farm producing high yields and destroying the water environment cannot be considered sustainable.
Diversification can reduce risk
Diversity is one of the most powerful tools available to farming systems.
A farm dependent on one crop, market, input and/or production mode might run efficiently under some conditions but may suffer when circumstances change, with climate shocks, pest attacks, market shifts and fluctuating input prices all capable of causing problems.
Diversifying production might mean growing more than one crop, agroforestry, diverse crop rotations, conservation of hedgerows, mixing crops and livestock or generating different types of income, although the specific opportunities will vary according to area and production type. The commonality is that diversity offers a way to spread risk and enhance resilience.
Diversity might also help biodiversity and soils. More diverse agricultural landscapes offer a wider range of habitats, more ecosystem functions and opportunities for biological control of pests.
Food systems shape farming
Farming systems are shaped by food system needs.
If the food system values output volume over all other attributes, it incentivises intensive production. If retailers demand perfect produce, farmers may feel pushed to employ more pesticides, and/or discard edible produce. If consumers are largely disconnected from production methods, the environmental costs of food may remain hidden.
This means that the future of farming is not just about production. It is also about the supply chain, food waste, food types, food supply procurement, international food trade and food pricing.
Reducing food loss and waste may reduce pressure on land and resources, better public procurement rules and private standards may help incentivise better sustainable food production, and food systems with better traceability might help support farms delivering environmental improvements and carbon reduction.
All of these points link the farm with natural resource and waste efficiency in food systems, where food that is grown, transported and consumed is not wasted and thus reduces land, water, energy, labour and environmental impact associated with growing the food product.
Farmers need realistic support
It is easy to tell a farmer to change. It is much harder to make that change possible.
Farmers often produce on tight margins and with a range of constraints, including changing weather patterns, price volatility, labour issues, debt and other liabilities, buyer requirements, and regulatory complexity. In some cases, delivering biodiversity-friendly or climate-friendly production may entail costs without adequate support and consequently such production might not occur.
The farming policy of the future will therefore need to be premised on realistic support, which could include paying for ecosystem services and technical advice, transition finance, research, model farms, reforming insurance, market-based incentives and public food procurement.
It is also where the economic value of nature can be useful. If farming helps clean water, storage of carbon, flood reduction, biodiversity conservation and landscape improvement, policy should help to recognise that value.
Farmers play a critical role in delivering environmental improvements, but need to be rewarded appropriately for providing the outcomes that society asks them to achieve.
Governance matters as much as ambition
Many agricultural policies include positive sounding references to sustainability, climate and biodiversity. The issue is often how policies are implemented.
Who is responsible? What is funded? How do we measure progress? What happens if we miss a target? Are farmers able to access unbiased advice? Are the different policies aligned or does one policy work against others?
These questions are the realm of incentives, rules and implementation. Good governance means getting policies to work well together, so agriculture, environment, water, climate, health, trade and rural development policies point in the same direction.
Bioenergy and competition for land
Farming is also linked to energy. Bioenergy crops, crop residues, livestock slurry/manure and other biomaterials may also be used in energy systems. However, this requires caution. There are limits to the amount of land and biomass available. Their use for energy may compete with food production, biodiversity, soil health and other environmental objectives.
Consequently, sustainable biomass choices need to be properly assessed. The future of farming should not treat bioenergy as inherently good, but should ask whether a particular use of biomass serves the climate agenda and does not create additional pressures on land, food and ecosystems.
A global challenge but local solutions
The future of farming is one of the key global environmental pressures that decision-makers, communities and businesses face.
But there cannot be a one-size-fits-all approach to farming. Different regions have different climatic, crop, soil, cultural, market, tenure, biodiversity and ecological conditions. What succeeds in one place can fail in another.
This means the future of farming should be underpinned by principles, rather than rigid rules.
Those principles include:
- Protecting the soil;
- Reducing avoidable pollution;
- Supporting biodiversity;
- Adapting to climate change;
- Managing water more efficiently;
- Maintaining food production;
- Supporting rural livelihoods.
Local knowledge, scientific evidence and farmer experience all matter, so policies should facilitate each of these sources of information.
Farming with the future in mind
The future of farming cannot be predicated on increasing food production first and fixing the environment later. As the natural systems that underpin food production deteriorate, food production itself is increasingly at risk.
A more balanced farming future sees food production, biodiversity and climate objectives developed jointly. We need food production that is capable of delivering nutritious food for people; a resource management policy that treats soil as a finite and essential resource, and that encourages reduction of fertiliser and pesticide use; an aim to restore nature within the farmed landscape; improved and expanded habitat for pollinators and natural enemies of crop pests; improved management of river and groundwater resources; climate change adaptation support and incentives for farmers; incentives to generate environmental outcomes, and a drive to reduce food waste across food chains.
The future of farming is not about choosing between farmers and nature. It is about recognising that they are linked.
A farm does not exist in a bubble, separate from its landscape. A food system does not exist in a vacuum, separate from climate change. Biodiversity does not exist as a side note to food production. Water does not exist as something separate from the soil it flows through.
The aim is that we have farming systems that meet needs for food, rural livelihoods, environmental protection and climate resilience. It is a hard balance to strike, but it is the balance we will need in the future.
