The Tenant Farmers Association (TFA) is supporting a proposal to develop a Farming Crisis Loan Scheme in 2026, under which viable farm businesses facing exceptional pressures would be offered interest-free loans to protect working capital and productive capacity.

The proposal was discussed by organisations participating in the farming roundtable coordinated by the National Farmers' Union (NFU). The discussion was held in response to a range of issues including the severe drought that has depleted forage and water supplies, poor harvest prospects, higher input costs and the effects of bluetongue which are combining to create a severe cash-flow crisis across farming.

 TFA Chief Executive, George Dunn, said: "The farming industry is facing an exceptional set of pressures. This is not just about absorbing the issues of a difficult year. For many tenant farmers in particular, the risk is that we see otherwise fundamentally sound farm businesses lost due to their inability to secure the cash and working capital needed to keep operating, restock, establish crops and plan for 2027 and beyond".

 "The TFA therefore supports the development of a properly designed Farming Crisis Loan Scheme offering interest-free finance to viable businesses hit by circumstances beyond their reasonable control. This is not about propping up businesses that were already unviable. It is about preventing temporary but extreme cash-flow shocks from destroying productive farm businesses, livelihoods and food-producing capacity", said Mr Dunn.

 Using farmers' existing banking relationships should allow support to be delivered more quickly than creating a new bureaucracy. Government backing through the British Business Bank could unlock substantial liquidity at a lower cost to the Exchequer than allowing viable businesses to collapse and productive capacity to disappear.

 However, this cannot be a one-off, stand-alone intervention. It must be connected to a wider programme of reform. A loan can provide a bridge through the present emergency, but it cannot substitute for action on supply-chain fairness, trade policy, proportionate regulation, sustainable payments for public goods, changes to the planning system and developing secure agricultural tenancies.

 "An interest-free crisis loan should be one piece of a much bigger jigsaw. It can keep otherwise viable businesses trading through an emergency, but Government must also address the structural weaknesses that leave primary producers carrying a disproportionate share of climate, disease and market risk. The loan scheme should be a bridge to a credible long-term farming roadmap as part of the Prime Minister's promised 10-year economic plan," said Mr Dunn.