Nearly One Million Hectares at Risk: The Government’s Land Plan Could Drive England Away from Food Production

Defra’s own figures reveal the true scale of the transformation now being imposed on the English countryside

Forget the carefully selected soundbites.
Forget the claim that only a tiny amount of agricultural land is affected.

Start with the Government’s own figures.
By 2050, Defra’s Land Use Framework identifies:
788,000 hectares
moving primarily away from food production and towards climate and nature objectives.
168,000 hectares
becoming non-agricultural through urban expansion.
Together, that is:
956,000 hectares
That is almost one million hectares of England’s present agricultural land where food production may no longer be the primary purpose , or where agriculture disappears altogether.

It represents approximately:
11% of England’s agricultural area
And that is not the complete picture.

A further:
155,000 hectares—2%
is associated with solar and onshore wind.

Another:
480,000 hectares—5%
would remain primarily in food production but be placed under changed agricultural practices intended to deliver environmental and climate objectives.

The categories can overlap. They must not be dishonestly added together and described as 18% of farmland being permanently destroyed.
But neither should their significance be hidden.
Defra has identified land-use or management changes equivalent to 18 percentage points of England’s Utilised Agricultural Area.
Approximately 11% could cease to have food production as its principal purpose or become non-agricultural.
A further 2% is associated with renewable energy.
Another 5% remains agricultural but comes under changed management.
That is the real scale of the Government’s land programme.

It is not small.

It is not marginal.

And it is not simply about solar panels.

Nearly one million hectares moving away from primary food production
The most important figures are the 788,000 hectares identified primarily for climate and nature purposes and the 168,000 hectares expected to become non-agricultural through urban growth.
Combined, they total 956,000 hectares.
To put that in perspective, one million hectares is approximately 2.47 million acres.
This is not a handful of isolated fields.
It is a land area stretching across thousands of farms, rural businesses and communities.
Defra says some food may continue to be produced on land directed primarily towards climate and nature objectives. That must be acknowledged.
But “some food production” is not the same thing as land remaining principally dedicated to feeding the country.
A field managed primarily for habitat creation, woodland, peat restoration or environmental offsetting may still support limited grazing or occasional agricultural use.
But its primary purpose has changed.
Its management has changed.
Its productive capacity may change.
And the commercial farming enterprise that previously depended on it may no longer be viable in the same form.
This could mean the loss of farms , not merely the loss of hectares
Government land-use statistics are normally presented in hectares and percentages.
Farmers do not live their lives in national percentages.
A farm is a connected business.
It depends on:
sufficient acreage;
workable field layouts;
access between fields;
secure tenancies;
storage and machinery;
livestock capacity;
drainage;
predictable income;
succession between generations.
Removing part of a farm can undermine the viability of the whole enterprise.
A solar development may take one group of fields.
A housing allocation may take another.
A new substation, road or pylon corridor may divide the remaining holding.
Environmental mitigation may restrict how adjoining land is used.
A farm that technically continues to exist may cease to function as a viable food-producing business.
That is why this cannot be reduced to a discussion about the precise number of hectares physically covered by panels, concrete or buildings.
The wider question is:
How many working farms will survive once the cumulative land demands are imposed?
The Land Use Framework does not provide that answer.
It does not tell the public:
how many farm businesses could be lost;
how many tenant farmers could be displaced;
how many holdings could become commercially unviable;
how many young farmers could lose the opportunity to take over family farms;
how much food output is currently produced from the affected land;
which regions will carry the greatest burden.
These are not minor omissions.
They go to the heart of national food security.
Land may remain green while farming disappears
One of the most misleading aspects of the debate is the assumption that land has only been lost when it has been covered with concrete.
That is false.
Land can remain visibly green while its agricultural purpose is fundamentally changed.
A former productive field may become:
woodland;
species-rich grassland;
wetland;
peat restoration;
Biodiversity Net Gain land;
habitat compensation;
environmental offsetting;
low-intensity grazing;
an energy site with limited agricultural activity.
Some of these uses may provide genuine environmental benefits.
But that does not mean they produce the same amount or type of food as the farming activity they replace.
A landscape can look rural while the productive farming economy beneath it is being dismantled.
The public must therefore distinguish between land that remains visually open and land that remains genuinely productive.
They are not necessarily the same thing.
The Government is assuming farmers will produce more from less
Defra argues that these changes can be delivered without reducing domestic food production.
But that claim depends on increased output elsewhere.
The Government’s position is effectively that farmers working the remaining productive land will become more efficient and compensate for land redirected towards other purposes.
That is an assumption , not a guarantee.
It requires productivity to continue rising despite farmers facing:
volatile fertiliser prices;
high energy costs;
flooding;
drought;
changing weather patterns;
labour shortages;
tight margins;
environmental restrictions;
uncertainty over future support;
competition from cheaper imports.
Where is the detailed proof that the remaining land can replace the production lost elsewhere?
Where is the crop-by-crop assessment?
Where is the calculation showing how many additional tonnes of wheat, potatoes, vegetables, fruit, meat and dairy will be required?
Which farms are expected to produce more?
What investment will be required?
What happens if the assumed productivity growth fails?
The Government has identified the land it wants for climate, nature, housing and energy.
It has not demonstrated, field by field and crop by crop, how Britain’s food supply will be protected.
Britain is already moving away from food self-sufficiency
This programme is being introduced while Britain already depends heavily on imported food.
Defra’s provisional figures for 2025 estimated that domestic production represented approximately:
60% of total UK food supply;
72% of indigenous-type food that could reasonably be produced here.
The corresponding 2024 figures were higher.
The value of food, feed and drink imports reached approximately £67.8 billion in 2025, while the food trade deficit rose to approximately £42.1 billion.
Domestic production supplied only around:
56% of fresh vegetables;
14% of fresh fruit;
49% of oilseed rape;
61% of sugar beet;
71% of potatoes;
83% of wheat;
80% of poultry meat.
Imports are an important part of a resilient food system.
They provide variety and can protect consumers when domestic harvests fail.
But imports should complement domestic production—not replace agricultural capacity that has been deliberately weakened through policy.
A country that becomes increasingly dependent on overseas food exposes itself to:
wars;
trade disputes;
shipping disruption;
export bans;
crop failures abroad;
currency movements;
international price shocks;
competition from wealthier markets.
Food security depends on the ability to produce a substantial share of essential food at home.
That capacity should not be surrendered casually.
The environmental contradiction
There is also a major contradiction in reducing British food production in the name of environmental policy.
When domestic production falls but consumption remains unchanged, the demand does not disappear.
The food is imported.
That means the associated:
land use;
water use;
fertiliser use;
energy consumption;
processing;
refrigeration;
transport emissions
may simply occur overseas.
Britain can then record lower territorial emissions while importing more products whose emissions were generated elsewhere.
That is not necessarily a genuine global environmental improvement.
It may simply be the outsourcing of production.
The environmental impact does not vanish at the border.
It disappears from the domestic accounting system.
Renewable-energy land could exceed the current estimate
The Land Use Framework associates approximately 155,000 hectares with solar and onshore wind by 2050.
That is already around 2% of England’s agricultural area.
Some of this may overlap with land identified for climate and nature purposes, and some agricultural activity may continue around energy infrastructure.
But the Government also acknowledges that the amount of land required for energy beyond 2035 could exceed the present estimate.
The final Strategic Spatial Energy Plan has not yet settled the complete geographical and technological requirements of the future energy system.
Therefore, the 2% figure should not be treated as a firm maximum.
It is an estimate produced before the full spatial energy programme has been completed.
Additional land may also be required for:
substations;
converter stations;
pylons;
transmission corridors;
access roads;
cable routes;
battery sites;
construction compounds;
mitigation and compensation land.
The physical footprint of the energy transition cannot be measured by counting solar-panel fields alone.
National averages conceal regional devastation
The transformation will not be spread evenly across England.
Some areas may experience little change.
Others could face a concentration of:
solar farms;
wind development;
battery compounds;
substations;
pylons;
housing;
habitat restoration;
Biodiversity Net Gain schemes;
water and flood-management measures.
A national figure of 2% can conceal the industrialisation of entire rural districts.
That is precisely why national percentages are so politically useful.
They make concentrated regional damage appear insignificant.
A project may occupy only a tiny percentage of England.
Ten projects in one district may transform that district.
The national denominator does not protect the affected community.
Nor does it replace the food previously produced there.
The Government must publish the missing figures
Before more agricultural land is redirected, ministers must provide:
The number of working farms affected.
The number of tenant farmers potentially displaced.
The volume and value of food currently produced from the land.
A regional map showing where the changes will concentrate.
The Agricultural Land Classification grades involved.
The crop-by-crop productivity increases required elsewhere.
The additional imports required if those increases are not achieved.
The overseas land, water and carbon effects of those imports.
A cumulative assessment covering energy, housing, nature schemes and grid infrastructure.
A binding national safeguard for strategically important food-producing land.
Without those answers, the claim that food production can be maintained is not a demonstrated plan.
It is a hope.
And now let us return to the “1%” claim
Only after examining the full figures should we return to the slogan that has been used to dismiss public concern.
In May 2024, DESNZ said that even under ambitious scenarios solar would occupy less than 1% of the United Kingdom’s agricultural land.
That claim dealt with solar alone.
It used the whole United Kingdom as the denominator.
It did not measure the combined pressure from:
climate and nature policy;
housing;
changed agricultural practices;
wind development;
grid infrastructure;
environmental compensation;
other land-use demands.
It answered the smallest possible version of the question.
The public was asking:
How much food-producing land is being redirected or placed under pressure by the complete policy programme?
The answer they were repeatedly given was:
Solar is less than 1%.
Defra’s own Land Use Framework now shows why that response was so misleading.
The real figures are:
9% moving primarily towards climate and nature objectives
2% becoming non-agricultural through urban expansion
2% associated with solar and onshore wind
5% remaining in food production but under changed practices
The categories overlap.
They are not all permanent losses.
But they expose a much wider national transformation than the “1%” slogan ever admitted.
So, to every activist, developer, politician and lobbyist who dismissed farmers and countryside campaigners by saying:
“It is only 1% of agricultural land.”
Read the Government’s own figures again.
Nearly one million hectares could move away from food production as their primary purpose or become non-agricultural.
Farm businesses could disappear.
Domestic production could fall.
Dependence on imports could increase.
And the Government is relying on farmers producing more from the land that remains to prevent that outcome.
It was never just 1%.
The 1% was merely the smallest part of a far larger land transformation.

Shane Oxer.    Campaigner for fairer and affordable energy