Farmers Weekly and FarmingUK quote Maddie Dunn on the latest UK farm rent data and associated industry trends

The latest annual data on UK farm rents – figures used by tenant farmers and landlords when negotiating rental and tenancy agreements – has revealed contrasting trends across agricultural tenancy types. The 2024/25 annual figures also indicate regional disparities in farm rents, as well as wide variance by agricultural sector.

With Basic Payment Scheme reductions and volatility in the market, businesses increasingly look to this data to make decisions around their business planning. However, due to a growing divergence between informal and formal farm rental arrangements, questions are being raised as to whether these headline figures accurately reflect conditions on the ground, particularly rent inflation.

Maddie Dunn, Legal Director in our Agricultural Dispute Resolution team, comments in FarmingUK and Farmers Weekly:

The growth of higher rent informal farm agreements may be masking stronger underlying increases in FBT rents. With many of these longer term informal arrangements likely to be unwritten FBTs, the relatively modest real terms movement shown in the formal FBT data may not capture the full picture of rent inflation in the sector. This trend also strengthens the case for incentivising longer term, formal tenancies, as highlighted in the recent farming profitability review led by Dame Minette Batters.

Read the full coverage in Farmers Weekly here, and FarmingUK here.