Agribusiness News April 2025

Welcome to the April edition of Agribusiness News.  If you prefer to download this document click the download button.

Keeping Up

At a time when everyone is busy sowing, lambing and calving, trying to keep up with world events feels like an impossible task especially as much of what applies today will change again tomorrow.  With America imposing and retracting significant tariffs on key trading partners on what feels like a daily basis as Donald Trump strives to Make America Great Again; it is difficult to know the full extent to which our own economy will be impacted.  There are significant concerns that agricultural produce and in particular, grains grown in America to meet their overseas humanitarian aid programmes not already purchased and rotting in stores will be dumped on the global markets.

With the post war alliance rule books being ripped up over the past couple of months, strategic posturing is abound as countries jealously eye up countries that are resource rich.  America’s interest in Greenland is not only from a strategic security perspective but like Ukraine it is rich in key minerals.  In fact, Greenland has known reserves of 43 of the 50 minerals deemed “critical” by America’s government, including probably the largest deposits of rare earths outside China.

Closer to home, the UK Spring Statement halved growth forecasts for this year from 2% down to 1% while pushing inflation forecasts to 3.2% against a target of 2%.  English farmers are still reeling from the sudden closure of the Sustainable Farming Incentives (SFI) Scheme.  They will have to wait until the summer to find out how the proposed revised scheme compares from both an environmental and financial perspective.

In this month’s edition, as climate-driven shifts in weather patterns call for greater flexibility, sustainability and innovation in the food system, our Sector Focus articles on Nature based solutions for a chaotic climate and on Home-Grown proteins give insights into how these can be achieved in practice.  Keeping on the sustainability theme, our Input article champions pollinators as a key agricultural input.

An audio version of Agri Business News is available on the FAS Website under FAS Sounds, and through podcast providers.

Agribusiness News | Helping farmers in Scotland | Farm Advisory Service

This month’s editor – Christine Beaton