Farming and food: your questions answered
Food inflation, farm numbers, farm incomes, farmland, subsidies, inheritance tax on farms, milk prices and food hygiene ratings, from official sources.
How do food hygiene ratings work?
Food businesses in England, Wales and Northern Ireland get a rating from 0 to 5 after a local authority food safety officer inspects them, under the Food Standards Agency's Food Hygiene Rating Scheme. 5 means hygiene standards are very good, 4 good, 3 generally satisfactory, 2 some improvement necessary, 1 major improvement necessary and 0 urgent improvement required.
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Do farmers pay inheritance tax?
Since 6 April 2026, 100% agricultural and business property relief together is capped at £2.5 million per estate, and qualifying property above that gets 50% relief, according to HMRC's Agricultural Relief guidance. Unused allowance can pass to a surviving spouse or civil partner, so a couple can pass on up to £5 million of qualifying property with full relief, on top of the nil-rate bands.
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How many farmers are there in the UK?
The agricultural workforce on UK commercial holdings was 446,000 people in June 2025, down 1.5% on the year, according to Defra's Agriculture in the United Kingdom 2025. Of these, about 289,000 were farmers, business partners, directors and spouses (145,000 full time and 144,000 part time), and 157,000 were regular employees, salaried managers and casual workers.
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What is the UK food inflation rate?
Food and non-alcoholic drink prices were 1.3% higher in August 2026 than a year earlier, the same rate as in July, according to the ONS consumer price inflation release published on 16 September 2026. The rate has eased from 4.5% in December 2025.
The figure is the food and non-alcoholic beverages part of the Consumer Prices Index, published monthly as an ONS time series that starts in 1989. Its highest point in that series was 19.1% in March 2023.
A lower rate means prices are rising more slowly, not that they are falling. Retail industry price trackers are not official statistics and can show different figures; the UK Statistics Authority explains what counts as official. For the headline rate across all goods and services, see the current UK inflation rate.
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How much of the UK is farmland?
The utilised agricultural area was 16.8 million hectares in June 2025, about 69% of the UK's land, according to Defra's Agriculture in the United Kingdom 2025. It covers crops, temporary and permanent grassland, rough grazing and land for outdoor pigs.
Grass dominates: permanent grassland and rough grazing made up about 9.5 million hectares. The croppable area was 6.1 million hectares, of which cereals took about 3.0 million. Defra's agricultural land use release gives the latest crop areas.
The figure excludes woodland and other non-farmed land on holdings. Defra's farming statistics do not record who owns farmland; for registered ownership in England and Wales, the source is HM Land Registry.
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How many farms are there in the UK?
There were about 212,000 agricultural holdings in the UK in June 2025, down from 216,000 in 2021, according to Defra's Agriculture in the United Kingdom 2025. The average holding covered 79 hectares.
Farm sizes vary widely. Almost half of holdings had less than 20 hectares but together covered only 4% of the farmed area, while around a fifth had 100 hectares or more and covered about three quarters of it. Counts by size, type and country are in the structure of the agricultural industry datasets.
A holding is a survey unit, not always a separate business, and England counts only commercial holdings above minimum size or livestock thresholds, so totals depend on the definition used.
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What subsidies do UK farmers get?
Payments and support to UK agriculture totalled £4.9 billion in 2025, up 9.7%, according to Defra's Agriculture in the United Kingdom 2025. Agri-environment schemes paid £1.8 billion and Basic Payment Scheme and delinked payments £1.0 billion, down 34% as the old area-based subsidy is phased out.
In England the Basic Payment Scheme ended in 2023. The Rural Payments Agency now makes delinked payments that fall each year, with 2027 the last year. Farmers can apply for schemes such as the Sustainable Farming Incentive and Countryside Stewardship, listed under funding for farmers. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland run their own schemes.
The £4.9 billion follows the OECD reporting basis and includes capital grants, so it differs from support figures in the farm accounts.
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How much do UK farmers earn?
Average Farm Business Income in Great Britain was £66,500 in 2024/25 (March 2024 to February 2025), according to Defra's Agriculture in the United Kingdom 2025. Results varied widely: 21% of farms made no positive income, while 38% made over £50,000.
In England, Defra's Farm Business Survey put average income at £153,800 for dairy farms, £49,700 for cereal farms and £41,300 for lowland grazing livestock farms in 2024/25. Agri-environment schemes made up around 30% of income across all farms. Defra forecasts falls in 2025/26 for most farm types in England other than dairy and lowland grazing.
Farm Business Income is not a salary. It is the return to all unpaid labour and to the capital invested in the business, including land and buildings, so it is not comparable with employee pay.
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What food does the UK produce the most of?
By value, milk is the UK's largest farm product: milk and milk products were worth £7.0 billion in 2025, according to Defra's Agriculture in the United Kingdom 2025. Beef and veal followed at £5.1 billion, then poultry meat at £3.6 billion, wheat and vegetables at about £2.1 billion each, mutton and lamb at £1.9 billion and pig meat at £1.8 billion.
Livestock output totalled £22.2 billion and crop output £11.4 billion. By weight, the UK harvested just under 12 million tonnes of wheat and 6.4 million tonnes of barley in 2025, and produced 15.8 billion litres of milk for human consumption. Detail is in the crops and livestock chapters.
Rankings change with prices as well as volumes. For how far UK production covers what is eaten, see how much food the UK imports.
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How much have food prices gone up since 2020?
The ONS price index for food and non-alcoholic drinks rose from 104.1 in January 2020 to 144.6 in August 2026, an increase of about 39%. Over the same period the all-items Consumer Prices Index rose by about 33%, so food prices rose faster than prices overall. Both indices are in the ONS food price index series and the monthly consumer price inflation release.
Most of the rise came in 2022 and 2023, when annual food inflation reached 19.1% in March 2023. The ONS shopping prices comparison tool shows average prices for individual items.
The index is an average across a basket, so individual products can have risen much more or less. When checking a claim, note the start month chosen, as it changes the answer.
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Do businesses have to display their food hygiene rating?
In Wales and Northern Ireland, yes: the law requires food businesses to display their rating sticker where customers can see it before entering, and to tell customers their rating if asked in person or by phone, the Food Standards Agency's scheme guidance says. In Wales, takeaway menus and leaflets must also carry a bilingual statement on how to find the rating. In England, display is voluntary but encouraged.
Ratings are also published online, and local authorities upload new results at least every 28 days. Businesses can appeal a rating, add a right to reply or ask for a re-inspection, as set out in the FSA's guidance for businesses.
A sticker can differ from the online rating for a short time during an appeal or upload. Concerns that a business shows a higher rating than it holds go to the local authority.
Related: How do food hygiene ratings work?
How much do farmers get paid for milk?
The UK average farm-gate milk price was 36.89 pence per litre in August 2026, up 4.0% on July but 17% lower than in August 2025, according to Defra's milk prices statistics notice published on 24 September 2026. Farms delivered 1,212 million litres to dairies that month.
Defra publishes the price monthly in its milk prices and composition series, using surveys of milk buyers in each UK country. Across 2025, milk and milk products were worth £7.0 billion to UK agriculture, the largest single farm product by value.
The monthly average excludes retrospective bonus payments that some buyers make later, and individual contracts vary with butterfat and protein content, so one farm's price can differ from the average.
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Source guides for this topic
These answers say where official figures are published and how they are defined. They give no verdict on any claim. To report an error, send a correction request.