Accredited official statistics

Chapter 2: Key Results and Overview Across England

Updated 22 January 2026

Applies to England

↩ Back to contents

← Chapter 1: Key Events

Key results

Figures are for March to February years, with the most recent year shown ending on 28 February 2025. This covers the 2024 harvest and includes the delinked Basic Payment due in the 2024/25 accounting year.

• In 2024/25, average Farm Business Income (total output generated by the farm business minus total farm costs) across all farms in England rose by 49% to £71,200.
• Breaking Farm Business Income down by cost centre shows the increasing importance of diversification and agri-environment activities for many farms. Across all farms, average net income from agri-environment activities more than doubled to £21,100 in 2024/25. This equated to around 30% of total Farm Business Income. Income from diversified activities rose by 21% to £22,400.
• Across individual farm types, Farm Business Income rose with the exception of specialist pig farms and horticulture farms. The figures should be taken in context against longer term trends and the increases in 2024/25 follow a considerable fall in income for some farm types in 2023/24. A full time series can be found in dataset Table 1.1.
• For cereal farms, Farm Business Income rose by a fifth to £49,700 while for general cropping farms there was a 3% rise to £107,700 (a 1% decrease in real terms). In both cases the main driver was an increased return on diversification and agri-environment activities.
• On dairy farms, average Farm Business Income more than doubled to £153,800 with a rise in the farmgate price of milk and income from other cattle enterprises the primary drivers.
• On lowland grazing livestock farms, average Farm Business Income increased from £18,500 to £41,300 while for grazing livestock farms in Less Favoured Areas average income was 61% higher at £40,300. For both farm types increased revenue from agri-environment activities was a key factor.
• Average Farm Business Income fell by 6% to £126,700 for specialist pig farms with a substantial increase in agricultural output not enough to offset lower revenue from diversification and the delinked Basic Payment. On specialist poultry farms Farm Business Income rose by just over a third to £235,900 with higher output from poultry meat being one of the main drivers.
• For horticulture farms, Farm Business Income fell by 1% to £52,700 in 2024/25 with higher costs, particularly casual labour and contract costs, more than offsetting an increase in agricultural output.
• In 2024/25, 72% of farm businesses in England had some form of diversified activity. Letting out buildings was the most popular activity with 50% of farms undertaking this (1 percentage point higher than in 2023/24). Letting out buildings refers to receiving rent for farm buildings or land for purposes not connected with the farm business, and does not include income from tourist accommodation. Production of solar energy was the next most popular activity with a 27% uptake, this was little change compared to uptake in 2023/24.

Overview of farms in England

Where table numbers are referred to in the text, these can be found within the dataset spreadsheet at: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/farm-accounts-in-england-data-sets.

At an England all farm level, average Farm Business Income (FBI) in 2024/25 was £71,200, an increase of 49% compared to 2023/24. The all farm FBI does however mask considerable variation between farm types (Figure 2.1) and should be considered in the context of longer term trends. A full time series can be found in dataset Table 1.1.

Breaking FBI down by cost centre (agriculture, agri-environment, diversification and delinked Basic Payment) shows the increasing importance of diversification and agri-environment activities for many farms. Across all farms, average net income from agri-environment activities more than doubled to £21,100 in 2024/25. This equated to around 30% of total FBI compared to 10% in 2020/21 (before the start of the agricultural transition). Income from diversified activities rose to £22,400 and on average accounted for 31% of total FBI in 2024/25.

In 2024, the Basic Payment was delinked from land and entitlements and the 2024/25 data relates to these delinked payments. Across all farm types, the average net payment received was approximately £13,500. This equated to around 19% FBI in 2024/25 compared to 55% in 2020/21 (before the start of the agricultural transition).

At the all farm level, the net return on agricultural activities rose from just £2,100 in 2023/24 to £14,200 in 2024/25. This increase was driven by higher output from livestock enterprises, which rose by 16%, more than offsetting a drop in crop output of 5%. Firm prices for both sheep and cattle enterprises were a factor boosting livestock output along with an increase in the farmgate milk price which recovered after the fall seen in 2023/24.

Generally, average crop yields were lower with wet conditions for autumn drilling particularly affecting winter sown crops. The reduced yields were exacerbated by lower prices, especially for wheat and barley. This impacted not only cropping farms but also most livestock farm types growing crops.

On average, agricultural costs rose by 3% in 2024/25. At the all farm level, fertilisers costs fell by almost a third which helped offset rises in other areas such as animal feed, labour and contactor costs. For fixed costs, the largest increases were for regular labour and general farming costs. Not all farm types experienced cost increases, or the same level of cost rises. On cereal, LFA grazing livestock and specialist pig farms agricultural input costs fell.

Figure 2.1 shows average FBI by farm type together with 95% confidence intervals. These show the range of values that may apply to the figures. Further details on accuracy or results can be found in 6.1 Survey Details.

Figure 2.1 Average Farm Business Income (£ per farm) by farm type, with 95% confidence intervals, in England, 2023/24 and 2024/25

Source: Dataset Table 1.1

Figure notes:

1. The legend is presented in the same order as the bars.

2. The sample sizes for specialist pig and poultry farms are relatively small, with average incomes subject to greater variation.

3. 95% Confidence Intervals have been presented to show the range where the true value is likely to lie and provides an indication of the degree of uncertainty of the estimate.

4. 2023/24 data has been revised with updates to Standard Labour Requirements and weighting methodology. For more details see 6.1 Survey details.

Figures 2.1 and 2.2 show that FBI varies both between and within farm types. The variation in incomes within farm types reflects a number of factors such as farm size, location and soil type. Some farm types also undertake a diverse range of agricultural activities. For example, horticulture includes specialist glasshouse farms, specialist fruit, specialist hardy nursery stock and market garden vegetable producers who may experience large differences in their production costs and outputs.

Figure 2.2 Distribution of Farm Business Income by farm type in England, 2024/25

Source: Dataset Table 8

Figure notes:

1. The legend is presented in the same order as the bars.

2. Due to small sample sizes, some categories have been merged for general cropping farms and horticulture farms; the categories are ‘Less than £0’, ‘£0 to £24.9k’, ‘£25k to £49.9k’, ‘£50k to £99.9k’ and ‘£100k and over’.

3. Due to small sample sizes, some categories have been merged for specialist pig farms and specialist poultry farms; the categories are ‘Less than £0’, ‘£0 to £49.9k’, ‘£50k to £99.9k’ and ‘£100k and over’.

4. Where the value is less than 5%, the label is not shown on the chart.

5. The sample sizes for specialist pig and poultry farms are relatively small with average incomes subject to greater variation.

Figure 2.2 shows the considerable variability in incomes at the farm level, both between and within farm types. In 2024/25, 21% of farms failed to make a profit (compared to 30% of farms in 2023/24). However, the proportion was higher for some types, such as cereals, mixed and horticulture (27%, 25% and 33% of farms respectively). Specialist poultry had the largest proportion of farms with an income of more than £100,000 at 69% followed by dairy at 51% of farms, while grazing livestock farms (both lowland and LFA) and horticulture had the lowest proportions.

Chapter 3: Cropping Farms →