Environment Secretary Speech on Back British Farming Day
Environment Secretary Angela Eagle addressed attendees at the NFU's Back British Farming Day 2026 reception.
Thank you everybody. It’s a great pleasure to be here this morning.
I’d like to thank the NFU for convening today’s Back British Farming Day reception, which is an opportunity to celebrate the tireless work of our farmers and growers in producing high-quality food, nurturing our natural world and sustaining the beating heart of Britain’s rural communities.
I think today is an opportunity to wear a wheat sheaf in recognition of all you do for our country.
I’m pleased to be back at Defra. My leadership will be shaped by my experience as Farming Minister, which taught me so much, but also as Security Minister. It was a slightly shorter tenure there, but it also taught me a very great deal about what we need to be thinking about as we move into the future. It taught me as well that farming is as integral to our national security as energy or defence.
And I would make one observation – that supply of food has often been taken for granted over the years. Because we’ve been so good at it, it has kind of faded into the background and everyone assumes it will always continue the way it always has.
But I think that there are challenges that we have to face, not least after the kind of summer and growing season that we’ve had this year, that we perhaps haven’t had to think about in a strategic way for many, many years – and I would probably say since the last World War.
And so, I think we must have different ways of thinking about how we do things as we move into the future.
I know that the past year has been incredibly difficult for many farmers. You’ve had rising input costs, water supplies drained by back-to-back heat waves and climate-driven outbreaks of disease, and most notably bluetongue, which we’re having to deal with at the moment.
I think when a third of farmers report that they make no profit, we’ve got to think about how to change that. If we’re relying on farmers to put food on our tables, farming has to put money in the pockets of those who farm. That is not rocket science conclusion to come to.
So that’s why we’re taking action to help the sector respond to immediate pressures and build a more profitable, productive, and sustainable future.
And we do that on the cusp of another great agricultural revolution, I believe, with the technology that has increasingly become available, which we have to not only be at the forefront of operationalising, but making certain that our farmers can use it and benefit from it.
In his first month of office, the Prime Minister visited a farm to announce a £65 million support package, including improved access to water and £15 million for on-farm reservoirs.
I also know this is an incredibly difficult time for animal keepers dealing with the bluetongue outbreak. APHA has published a new heat map of suspected and confirmed cases, which I hope you’ll all have seen so you can better understand the risk in your area. And from Friday 11th September, a revised reporting process will make it quicker and easier to confirm disease.
Please speak to your vet about vaccination. It significantly reduces the severity of the disease, and you can apply for a free annual vet visit under the Animal Health and Welfare Pathway.
But immediate support isn’t enough. For too long farmers have been left to get on with it with nobody thinking about the overall structure. That’s why I worked closely with the sector on the first ever strategic plan for agriculture, setting out how farming needs to evolve – combining nature-led solutions and farming together that will make us more resilient as we look to the future.
On Back British Farming Day, I’d like to reiterate my full-throated support for Farming Roadmap. I’m backing it, the PM’s backing it and we are backing you to put it into effect.
The Roadmap doesn’t see nature and farming pulling in opposite directions. Healthy soil holds water in a drought, and it drains it in a deluge. Hedgerows shelter livestock in a heat wave, as do trees.
Our Land Use Framework says that 15% of land use needs to change and that we can change it and produce the same levels of food. We want to help that transition come about.
Our Sustainable Farming Incentive encourages nature-based practices which we need to see adopted. And I’m pleased to say that Window 1 was a success with 7,000 applications – 87% for businesses without an ELM agreement.
We expect Window 2 to open on the 22nd of September with an increased budget of £230 million. And we’re introducing a new feature for Window 2 allowing farmers with agreements expiring by the end of February 2027 to apply for SFI26 before their current agreement ends.
Alongside this we’ve allocated £225 million, up 50% from last year, to support our capital grants offer. That funding is delivering practical improvements to the environment like creating 2,500 km of new hedgerows and improvements to profitability.
Our Farming Improvement Partnership Board is bringing industry leaders into the same room to set system-wide plans for growth, starting with our growth plan for horticulture, which I am extremely committed to making a success of. With poultry and other sectors to follow.
British farmers shouldn’t have to shoulder the risks of changing climate.
I believe we’re at a turning point, especially after the summer we have just had, which, let’s face it, is the third difficult summer in the last five years, and it’s probably going to be repeated in its difficulties perhaps next year, with the El Niño that we’ve got forming in the ocean on the other side of the world.
So, we’re at a turning point where the Farming Roadmap, the Farming and Food Partnership Board, the Land Use Framework, all need to come together to set a direction to make farming profitable and ensure that we can support a good and secure food supply.
On Back British Farming Day, therefore, I want to reiterate this government’s commitment to creating the conditions you need to adapt and to succeed, because when farmers thrive, the nation thrives.
Thank you very much.