Growers are being asked to hold yield and quality while the two biggest variable costs, fertiliser and water, get more expensive and less certain to obtain.
Farm input costs are up 44% since 2019, and the UK has no domestic buffer on nitrogen fertiliser, so the bill, running at GBP 1.4 to 2.0bn a year, tracks the gas price with nowhere to hide. Margin is the first casualty.
Water is becoming a hard constraint, not just a cost. The Environment Agency projects a national shortfall of around 5 billion litres a day by 2055, recent droughts cost arable farmers roughly GBP 800m in lost production, and from 2028 abstraction licences convert to environmental permits that can be reduced or revoked.
On top of the cost, nutrient and water rules (the Farming Rules for Water, nitrate vulnerable zones, abstraction reform) tighten what you can apply and when. Doing more with less is now the baseline, not the ambition.