Rootstock, which is organised by the Devon County Agricultural Association (DCAA), is a one-day event looking at how farmers can build ‘profitable, resilient businesses in tune with nature’ and the NFU is one of the sponsors.
This year, it took place against a particularly challenging backdrop, and farmers and industry experts from across the South region packed the conference centre at Westpoint, near Exeter, to consider the way ahead.
Not an easy business
DCAA treasurer Sir Henry Studholme introduced the day by pointing out that farming was not an easy business and this had been the case for more years than not ever since the DCAA was founded in 1872, but 2025 and the first months of 2026 had been especially difficult.
Professor Pete Falloon, who leads the Met Office (MO) climate service for Defra and is its science lead for food security, said that adapting to changing climate was recognised as being one of the biggest challenges facing farming.
“Extreme weather presents the highest risk for future shocks. There’s more volatility and shorter gaps between extreme events,” he said.
He said the Met Office was working with Defra to try and understand exactly what hazards were being presented by a trend towards warmer, wetter winters and hotter, drier summers.
There were various ‘quick win’ actions that could be taken that would be easy to implement, effective, and relatively low cost, he added.
For coping with dry conditions, these included establishing crops early and choosing slow-maturing varieties, improving on-farm water management, using deeper rooting grass species and avoiding harvesting during the hottest parts of the day.
He also recommended that for flooding and wet conditions farmers develop a flood contingency plan, consult a vet to avoid key welfare issues like lameness in very wet conditions, plan grazing to ensure spare paddocks were available during wet periods and increase soil organic matter.
“By taking control we can be in charge of our own destiny.”
Devon farmer and consultant Chris Clark
Working together
Prof Falloon stressed that farming issues should not be considered in isolation.
“Science, government, farmers and the wider industry need to work together to support adoption, and implementation,” he said.
Martin Lines, who leads the Nature Friendly Farming Network (NFFN), looked at some of the challenges around farm profitability. He particularly focussed on the recommendations of the report recently produced by former NFU President Baroness Minette Batters.
“We needed this review because farm incomes are under pressure. Many farms are not profitable, so food security and the rural economy are at risk,” he said.
“Around 30% of farms are recording losses and it’s the mid-performing farms that are most at risk.”
Planning and regulation
Baroness Batters’ report had pointed out that one of the problems with the food system is that farmers bear all the risk. Rising input costs, skills shortages, limited access to finance and policy instability also posed challenges.
But Mr Lines said he remained optimistic about the future for farming, especially if some of the report’s proposed solutions could be implemented, including a more proportionate and less complex planning and regulation system.
Baroness Batters also proposed the creation of a Farming and Food Board, and during her speech at the NFU Conference, Defra Secretary of State Emma Reynolds confirmed that its first meeting would be in March and the NFU would be represented on it.
Environment Agency chair Alan Lovell told the conference that better planning of water infrastructure was essential.
Thinking ahead
“We need to be thinking 50 to 100 years ahead – we have not completed a new reservoir in the UK since 1992 and that is one of the reasons why demand for water is so hard to manage.”
Mr Lovell added that farmers needed to recognise they could do more to try and stop pollution incidents, particularly with the weather likely to get wetter, and he welcomed moves to bring cattle farming under environmental permitting regulations.
The NFU has expressed concern that extending permitting will increase the administrative burden on farmers, resulting in higher costs and more red tape and is proposing farmer-led initiatives, focusing on better slurry management and nutrient management plans, as an alternative.
But Mr Lovell said he believed farmers would find that permitting would result in streamlined regulations that would ultimately be an advantage.
Other sessions looked how to build a resilient arable rotation, with a particular emphasis on maintaining healthy soils.
Paul Baker, who farms near Cullompton in Devon, talked about how his 340-acre mixed farm had now started to focus on profit, rather than yield, and his introduction of a system of mixed cropping and efforts to be as efficient as possible had begun to pay dividends.
Annie Landless, farm manager at Ampney Brook, a 600-acre mixed regenerative farm in the Cotswolds, told the conference about her experiments with different crop rotations, including bread-making wheats and beans.
Optimising livestock production was also discussed, with a look at the impact on shelter and shade on welfare and production.
Hit the sweet spot
Devon farmer and consultant Chris Clark told final session about farm profitability that farmers needed to remember they were the “most important converters of energy” as they took several nuclear power stations-worth of solar energy and converted it into food.
If farmers could take advantage of this and hit the “sweet spot” of maximising production using natural resources, it could transform the industry.
Mr Clark said his analysis of around 400 farm businesses showed that the most sustainable way forward was to produce food using as many natural resources as possible.
“Solar energy is free, industrial energy is expensive,” he said.
“For too long, farmers have taken refuge in the false security of consensus… and we have come to accept our business are unprofitable without support – but by taking control we can be in charge of our own destiny,” he said.
Experimentation and flexibility
Wrapping up the day, Michael Winter, Professor of Rural Policy at the University of Exeter, said part of the key to a profitable future was experimentation and flexible management.
“What could it be like? The farming landscape will be a lot more diverse, there will be more varied enterprises and cropping patterns.
“If we can get through, we have global food security challenge, we need to feed people and we need a resilient system that can survive pressures.
“If it’s not profitable, we’re wasting our time. But [farming] needs to be environmentally benign, not just because we’re fluffy and like nice things, but because if it isn’t, it won’t be sustainable.
“There’s a lot of gloom and doom about, but potentially the future is quite exciting and to hear that today has been great.”