Defra's landmark document has a welcome focus on multifunctional land use, but questions remain around how change is going to be funded.

The NFFN has welcomed the launch of the Land Use Framework for England (LUF), calling it a positive starting point for important conversations about the future of food and farming.

The landmark document sets out the challenges posed by the increasing demands on land across England. We hope the LUF will help move the conversation beyond binary arguments comparing food production to other uses of farmland, such as renewable energy or woodland.

Instead, it focuses on multifunctional land use, where a single field or farm can provide a range of products and services, from food and timber to contributing to climate change mitigation and nature restoration.

In practice, this could mean growing arable crops or grazing livestock around solar panels, or introducing nature-based flood management systems by allowing land to flood to protect downstream communities.

This approach should help farms become more resilient, both financially and environmentally, at a time when fuel and fertiliser prices are rocketing due to the invasion of Iran and climate change is having a significant impact on farms across the country. However, clarity around funding the changes in the report is still required.

NFFN CEO Martin Lines said: “There is a great deal to welcome in this framework. We have long said that farms can do much more than simply produce food, and this report rightly highlights the wide range of goods and services our industry can provide. Its emphasis on multifunctional land use - delivering multiple outcomes from the same piece of land rather than separating nature and food production - must be at the heart of our thinking for the future.