Why I believe UK farming in 2025 is broken

I explain why I think arable farming in the UK is broken in 2025 by looking back at grain prices in the '80s and '90s, when they were much better than they are today once inflation is taken into account.

[MartinReade]

Hello Harry. As a semi retired farmer now for 10 years, i regard your channel as possibly the most informative on youtube today. Thank you for showing your costed out information. This is a reality check as to why i pulled the plug on dairy farming in shropshire. As a mixed farm, 200 dairy and arable of over 400 acres, it was shocking the returns when you look back and compare to the 1980s and 90s. Staff issues and bank borrowings despite a good single farm payment, just didn t cut it. In 2008 i invested over £ in a new dairy parlour and handling facility with the view of reducing staff but after 2 years of dropping milk prices and evident cell count issues alongside T B problems, i lost 70 milkers in 1 hit, i was questioning my future as a farmer. The turning point came in 2010 when my 70 year old father died suddenly from pneumonia, trying to work on through illness. Well that was it for me, i have no sons and my decision was made, it was all going. By March 2011 the farm was sold, i have often wondered weather i made the right decision or not but in light of the recent inheritance tax debarcle and listening to you and the complicated way you are now supposedly making a living not growing grain, i am relieved to be out of it and was able to roll over capital without any capital gains or other tax to pay. My example is not good for the production of food in this country but it has surely made my life a whole lot easier. I am a farmer by trade and love the job even to this day but so glad to be out of it. Please do keep these really informative videos coming as you can, i do appreciate your time on this, thank you.

[AndrewHgs]

Jeremy Clarkson gets the publicity ( and a TV contract worth more than farming...!), but Harry is by far the best explainer of British farming to the public, thanks to 'humble' YouTube. Always so informative....thanks.

[johnmackay]

The most clear and watchable program on farming out there. Thank you.

[parkmantle]

Wow, that was so incredibly interesting Harry. I had no particular interest in farming until I migrated from your Garage channel to watch the farm channel and now I'm hooked! For the government to pay farms not to grow food just seems crazy and to have two-thirds of your land unproductive just sounds ridiculous. Glad you were able to join Jeremy talking to Kemi but it's really Keir and the relevant ministers that should really have an audience with you and other farmers who can articulate the issues so clearly! Good luck with the 2025 harvest.

[djowen]

And this is the problem, we have people sitting in committee making decisions on farming and food production who have never set foot on a farm and who have no idea about the situation farmers are in. They simply don't care, it's shameful.

[stephentonkin]

Dear Harry. I’m not a farmer but my father was long ago. Your concerns regarding feeding our own nation are very valid and I take off my flat cap to you in explaining what our farmers are up against. Recent governments seem to have ignored the significance of UK farming, but have turned an ear to environmentalists without accepting responsibility for the consequences of food costs and
Land husbandry. Our present govt seems deliberately anti-farming, which is extremely worrying.
I know your Harrys Farm ‘programme’ has a huge following and I hope that this is one of the tools we can all use to get HM Govt to realise what wrongs are in place and what needs to be done to improve all our lives.
You have my greatest admiration. Thank you, Harry

[ajadrew]

Your frustration is, & quite rightly, visible - I think I'd be screaming about it all because, with your clear & rational understanding & ability to put forward these points, it's blatently obvious farming is broken.

[paullawrence]

Harry. UK farming has been broken for a number of years now.
It is a brave farmer who believes the Government will honour these current agreements. We now know they are gunning for farmers with their APR and nitrogen taxes.
I am a similar age and went to Shuttleworth but my exposure to agriculture is now low (80acres instead of 1000) as I could see this decline starting.
I mainly grow malting barley now. Enough for about 1 million pints of beer. Worth about £5 million in the pub. I receive approx £25, 000 for that barley!!! That’s 1/200th of the price if a pint.
If my price/tonne doubled it would only add 2.5 pence to the cost of a pint, but it would make my farming enterprise competitively profitable with normal business enterprises.
I know you are aware if this but most of the public are not.
Paul

[KevsSanders]

As usual- well presented, incisive analysis. Thanks Harry.

[hedydd]

I’m in the process of getting out of milk production. I’ll have sold half my herd by next Wednesday and am TB free [always have been] at the moment. However two of my neighbours have gone down with it in the last month and that would mean only selling my prized cows for slaughter or carrying on milk production until clear. Selling for slaughter would, apart from being heartbreaking, only raise a third of their true productive value. The risk is ridiculous. I honestly can’t wait to get out of the job and its costs, risks and stresses.

[HedgehogChopper]

clear, concise and informative
You could say Harry's hit the nail on the head

[terydn]

Anyone that owns or sits on the board of a business knows the importance of assessing the risks and will go on to build a resilience plan that manages those risks. Why isn’t the government doing the same for food and energy?

[grahamsouthon]

Thank you so much for taking the time to explain what is happening in the farming world. We really appreciate news 'from the coal face' as opposed to the edited versions we get from various news agencies.

[zerosilver]

It’s people like Kemi Badenoch who put you in this position in the first place. Just remember that Harry.

[CauliflowerMcPugg]

Sounds like a death of a thousand cuts to me. Parliament, for the last 20 or so years, has been an asylum with no staff to control the inmates. We the people need to become the staff.

[geoffnewman]

Its very interesting that you talk about grain prices in 1984 when food production was heavily subsidised and there was massive over production. Farmers at that time were also paying inheritance tax at the full 40% rate.

[edwardleigh-firbank]

Thank goodness we have Harry to fight our corner. Keep it up, Harry!!

[donaldshort]

Thank you for your insights Harry. I think this channel to be one of the most important on You Tube.

[neildaniel]

It's very rare I disagree with you Harry but when you said that the meeting with Kemi wasn't political I'm afraid you're mistaken. She was part of the group that set up all of this environmental scheme and it's poor planning and implementation. The current Labour govt are now having to implement it knowing that it is not well-thought out and definitely not in the country's interests. She is now going around making out that her party want to fix the issue that Labour have caused when in reality her party are the architects of the current issues. Just you using that photo of her there with you and Jeremy is enough for her to make political capital out of an issue that her party created. The only current issue that you can pin on Labour right now is the IHT one, everything else belongs to the previous 14+ years of Conservative governments including the fallout from the word that everyone seemingly cannot say ie Brexit. Yes things are a mess right now and yes we definitely need to start recognising that and making future plans but a massive part of that is to recognise and say what and who caused that fault. Without doing that we are destined to make the same mistakes and the people responsible for those mistakes need to be held accountable, preferably in an adult manner but we all know that doesn't happen in politics.

Apart from that a really good overview of the current situation and as always it's good to hear your viewpoint.

[hedydd]

The fact that even though crop prices at unsustainably low while the tonnage grown and sold on the home market has and is declining rapidly, tells me that there is still far too much cereal grown worldwide. Any sign of a real international shortage would see the price shoot upwards. However, as a livestock farmer and a cereal farmer’s customer and end user, I can tell you straight that I’m paying more than enough for your grain. I used to buy around 400 tons of cow feed a year but from March that will reduce to near zero. Arable farmers and livestock farmers tend to have opposite price priorities… the horn verses corn dilemma.