dO WE HAVE A CHOICE?

 FARM CHANGE                                                                                             Jerome Rault Mar 31, 2026

A  new report just dropped in the UK this week, and if you’re serious  about the future of food and farming, you need to pay attention - even  if you’re based in Australia or New Zealand.

Here’s  why this matters to farmers in Australia and New Zealand. The UK is  about 10-15 years ahead of us in having these serious policy and  economic conversations. Their government is already wrestling with the  fact that 60% of their nitrogen fertiliser comes from overseas - a  supply chain vulnerability that one global disruption could shatter  overnight. That’s a problem we share. Australia exports 70% of its  agricultural production, but we’re just as dependent on imported inputs  to run conventional farming systems. 

If the inputs  stop flowing, those conventional operations don’t have a plan B.  Regenerative farmers do - because the whole model is built around  reducing external input dependency.

What the Demos  report confirms is something I’ve been saying for years: regenerative  farming is not an idealistic lifestyle choice for tree-huggers. It is a  risk-management strategy. It is a business model that gets stronger when  supply chains break down, when fertiliser prices spike, when droughts  hit, and when markets start paying premiums for provenance and quality.  The farms I see thriving right now are the ones that stopped chasing  synthetic inputs and started building living soil. Their costs are down.  Their yields are holding. And their land is worth more every year - not  less.

If you’re sitting on land or thinking about making a move  to the land, this report is your permission slip. The mainstream  economic establishment is now saying what regenerative farmers already  knew. The question is how quickly you can position yourself on the right  side of this shift.

If you want to go deeper on this -  specifically, how to map your land’s potential and build a regenerative  system that works commercially from day one - the Farm Dossier Build is  where that conversation starts. It’s the foundation of everything we do  at Cultured Estates.

**Source:**  Farming UK / Demos Think Tank “Growing Strong” Report -  https://www.farminguk.com/news/sustainable-farming-could-prevent-150bn-hit-to-uk-economy-report-warns_68188.html