Bianca Forte, 20 January 2026

• The UK Farming Profitability Review calls government to create a policy and regulatory environment that puts food security at the heart of the sustainability agenda.
• It calls for a strategy that empowers and enables farmers to engage effectively with industry to co-design and co-develop the solutions required to truly transform performance.
• Environmental sustainability must work hand-in-hand with farmer profitability – something that biostimulants are uniquely positioned to deliver.

In December 2025, the UK Government published its Farming Profitability Review, a wide-ranging, independent assessment of the pressures facing farm businesses and the structural changes needed to deliver a more profitable and resilient UK farming sector.

While the review is broad in scope, one message is loud and clear: a more strategic policy and regulatory framework is needed – one that better balances food production and environmental outcomes – to ensure the viability, profitability and sustainability of UK farming.

For biostimulant ventures, the Review brings positive news. If adopted, its recommendations will create a strengthening market for innovations that deliver measurable return on investment to farmers while improving the resilience and sustainability of food production.

Profitability returns to the centre of UK agricultural policy

At the heart of the Review is a clear call to “make, create, grow, produce and sell more from our farms in a measurable way.” This explicit focus on outcomes marks an important recalibration in UK agricultural policy. It is not a retreat from environmental ambition, but an honest reminder that profitability is one of the three pillars of sustainability.

In recent years, much innovation has focused on reducing the environmental footprint of agriculture; however, in many cases the economic case for adoption has been poorly defined. The Review signals a shift toward solutions that embed environmental benefit within a robust commercial model.

How biostimulants fit the new farming profitability agenda

Biostimulants sit squarely within this emerging paradigm. By increasing crop yield and quality and improving the efficiency with which other inputs are used, they offer a pathway to producing more food per hectare without increasing environmental impact – while strengthening farm revenues rather than diluting them.

The Review also positions food production as part of the UK’s critical national infrastructure, explicitly linking food access to national security. Against a backdrop of rising food insecurity, this elevates the strategic importance of innovations that support resilient domestic production.

For investors, this alignment matters. Markets that sit at the intersection of national infrastructure, economic growth and sustainability will benefit from sustained policy focus, public funding support and long-term demand – helping to de-risk opportunities.

A clear mandate for commercial, farmer-led agri-tech research

Another strong signal for biostimulant ventures is the Review’s call for goal-orientated commercial research. It calls for science to be designed with farmers, not just for them, and for investment to be coordinated across industry and public bodies such as BBSRC, Defra and Innovate UK.

This is not about expanding research budgets indiscriminately. It is about directing capital towards innovation that delivers measurable outcomes on farm – particularly profitability and resilience.

When research is co-designed with farmers, tested under real-world conditions and evaluated against metrics that matter to farm businesses, the translation and adoption of outputs can be accelerated. This is particularly important in fields with long R&D cycles like agri-tech.

This creates a more favourable pathway from scientific discovery to commercial impact.

How climate volatility is accelerating demand for crop innovation

The Review places resilience at the centre of farming viability – a theme strongly echoed by results from a survey of 211 UK farmers that we commissioned from Grounded Research last year.

For 95% of respondents of our survey, weather variability emerged as the single most significant challenge facing wheat production. This was the top risk identified by them – ahead even of disease control or weed resistance, which historically would have been biggest concerns.

This growing exposure to climate volatility is reshaping demand for innovations that help crops tolerate drought, heat and other types of abiotic stresses. In that context, biostimulants will become core tools for managing risk and protecting margins in crop production.

Agri-tech adoption in the UK: Barriers, demand and opportunity

The Review is realistic about the barriers farmers face when trialling new technologies. With margins under pressure, the appetite for risk is limited. For biostimulants in particular, this is precisely where the opportunity lies.

Data from our survey shows that while farmers have experienced mixed results from existing biostimulant products, demand is strong. Over three-quarters of farmers surveyed said they would adopt new biostimulants if a clear financial advantage were demonstrated, and half expect to increase their use over the next five years.

Barriers to adoption were identified in the survey – cost-effectiveness, proven performance and access to independent data. These are not structural blockers, but signals of a market moving from early experimentation to evidence-led selection.

Internationally, there is great experience that can be drawn from to facilitate this transition.

In the EU for instance, where biostimulants are regulated under FPR 2019/1009, some countries are using elements of their CAP budgets to support farmer-led trials of new products. The principle is simple: allow farmers to see return on investment on their own farms before scaling adoption.

For the UK, the Review points toward mechanisms such as streamlined grants with reduced administrative burden. We believe better use of subsidies to promote practice that delivers environmental as well as financial outcomes on farms also have an important role to play in this.

What the Review means for agri-tech ventures and investors

Taken together, the Farming Profitability Review outlines a sector in transition:

• Farmers are actively seeking tools to manage risk and protect margins;
• Policy is re-anchoring around productivity, profitability and resilience;
• Research funding is shifting toward commercial, outcome-driven innovation;
• Adoption barriers are increasingly addressable through evidence and collaboration.

This is the profile of a market entering a transformation phase – where many opportunities will be found for innovations with scientific credibility, regulatory alignment and real-world performance.

Building the next generation of crop stimulation technology

With a product based on 25+ years of cutting-edge science and a ground-breaking technology invented by Oxford University and Rothamsted Research, we are keen to play our part in the above.

While the bulk of biostimulants available to farmers today are mixtures of ingredients with poorly described modes of action, our formulations use single active ingredients based on natural molecules that trigger specific metabolic, physiological and stress-responses in plants.

By working closely with farmers and go-to-market partners from the earliest stages of development, we are aligning our innovation pipeline with the priorities highlighted in the Review: productivity, resilience and profitability. By improving efficiency, we reduce the environmental impact of farming.

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