UK farms are closing the books on a second dry year and cannot agree on what they find there. A conversation on The Farming Forum asking a simple question, whether farms are better or worse off than this time last year, split down sector and rainfall lines. Beneath the split ran an uncomfortable agreement: several of the most secure farms got there by producing less.
By TFF News | 19 October 2026 | Business
The conversation opened on 12 October 2026 and was still running on the morning of 19 October. It drew 123 visible contributions, had been viewed 7,853 times and gathered 415 reactions, an average of 3.37 per contribution. These figures describe one self-selected conversation, not a representative survey of UK farming.
A snapshot split by sector and rainfall
The opening contribution set a tone of mild surprise: “Had a quick look through cashflow etc and to my surprise noted we were better off than we were this time last year, not a lot but a small amount.” The first reply pinned its damage on succession planning rather than the season: “worse off, due to huge tax bills and having to pay significant legal costs due to iht planning, the huge tax bills were a symptom of the iht planning !”
A Welsh dairy farm, in a second dry year with a milk price slump and new borrowing on top, described the hardest position: “It’s probably the most worrying time since black Wednesday back in 1992”. Against that, livestock sellers had a year to bank: “It was a terrible summer for grass growth but September was exceptional so when it came they bloomed and we got them gone to a strong trade.” One arable contributor needed five short sentences: “Slightly lower yield. Higher price. Less costs. Straw double what it was. So overall better.”
The split matches the official forecasts. Defra’s Farm Business Income forecasts for 2025/26 put lowland grazing livestock incomes up 9 per cent while cereal farm incomes fall by about two thirds to £17,000; the forecast 45 per cent dairy rise has since aged, with The Andersons Centre putting milk prices around 25 per cent below a year earlier by spring, the slump the Welsh contributor was feeling.
Doing less, earning more
The striking strand was how many better-off farms credited retreat rather than output. One mixed farm, now down to sheep, grass and environmental schemes, put it plainly: “It’s a bit sad that actually throttling back production and output has improved our financial position but there we have it.” Another echoed: “improved farm resilience by cutting back on production and not spending. Sad really, difficult to get excited about that as a business strategy for the next 10 years”, adding that the aim now is “giving my children as little debt and as many choices as possible”.
Others have gone further. One arable business, now all SFI and solar, reports “On marginal ground the sums just don’t stack up unfortunately currently.” Another, whose most profitable fields are also solar and SFI, closed with “I’m really sick of farming and looking for ways to stop doing it !” A former dairy farmer, now part-time beef with off-farm work as the main living income, reported a simpler life and fewer bills.
The most agreed-with contribution made the counterpoint: producing food should pay better, and not producing it should not be the more attractive option. Nobody argued the numbers back. The scheme-reliant position has its own risk, as one contributor acknowledged: “Operating on a three year business plan with a potential cliff edge waiting at the end of each cycle, it is not really ideal.”
Strong prices, thin margins
Record livestock prices ran through the conversation, and so did scepticism about what they buy. “Having been to market this week and visited the calf and dairy rings you would think farmers doing great”, wrote one contributor. A small sheep farm answered: “need to be to cover increased costs and the loss of BPS, no better off on this small sheep farm (350 ewes)”. Another livestock contributor argued that “330p for fat lambs isn’t that much in comparison” with input costs.
One contributor measured the squeeze in kind: “When fat cattle were making €1200 I could buy 6 tons of sulfur can, now with the much higher price I can only buy at best 5 ton”. The closing contribution cited Andersons figures, and they check out: Andersons put agricultural input inflation at 8.4 per cent in spring 2026, more than double consumer inflation at 3.3 per cent, while agricultural output prices fell 5.8 per cent year on year. As that contributor put it: “the risk has increased because if you lose a sheep/cow etc there is a much bigger loss to make up”.
The potato lottery, contested
The sharpest factual argument was over potatoes. One contributor reported “i am told potatoes have jumped massively and are now over £600/t” and reasoned that irrigated growers with uncontracted tonnage are in for an exceptional year. A grower answered with different arithmetic: “Tates are more like 400/t and 50% of normal yield”, and later added that “a year like we’ve just had will seriously stress test most”.
The wider evidence sides with caution. Industry reporting on 16 October carried the Food and Drink Federation’s warning of the worst UK potato harvest since the 1950s, an estimate of roughly 440,000 tonnes lost to heat and drought, and GB Potatoes’ account of smaller tubers and significantly higher irrigation costs. High prices on few tonnes, grown at higher cost, is a margin trap rather than a lottery win for most.
Mixed signals from the machinery trade
The conversation read the machinery market two ways at once. “Speaking to machinery dealers, the used market has crashed; dealers don’t want any stock and they’re struggling to sell much new in arable areas.” Yet dispersal sales tell another story: “all the decent well maintained machinery/ tractors are making very strong money and easily selling”.
The registration data carries both truths. AEA figures for August 2026 show 395 tractors registered, more than 40 per cent below the five-year seasonal average, even with the year to date up 18.4 per cent on a very weak 2025. Finance keeps the wheel turning for some: one mixed farmer “swapped a 5 year old tractor for a 6 month old one, same spec and make but slightly more horsepower and new 5 year warranty” for £10 a month more, while another “wouldn’t want all of them on monthly payments like some seem to do”.
The question left with the trade
One contribution asked: “The forthcoming Budget will be pivotal again too?” The deeper question came from the contributor who has already scaled back: “Would you still drill a crop knowing you stand more than a 50% chance of losing money on it?” A customer base discovering, farm by farm, that spending less is the profitable choice is a different market from the one the trade was built on. Whether the Budget, SFI’s next window or a turn in the weather changes that calculation is the question the conversation could not answer.
Read the source conversation and analysis
Read the full conversation on The Farming Forum here. A nine-slide PDF analysis of the conversation, with theme, sentiment and contributor breakdowns, is available here: download the conversation analysis deck (PDF).
This conversation had been viewed 7,853 times on The Farming Forum when counted on 19 October 2026. Want your brand in the room when farmers talk business? Book advertising with Agri Web Media.