It’s estimated that nearly 3 million tonnes of edible food waste, almost two-thirds of the UK’s supply chain total, happens before it leaves the farm gate.20 WRAP estimates that some 360,000 tonnes of this could be redistributed each year – enough to provide over 850 million meals.21
Statutory guidance from the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra) sets out a clear hierarchy of approaches for dealing with surplus or waste food and drink. The priority is, rightly, to prevent such waste in the first place. But where this is not possible, the guidance clearly shows the next best option is to redistribute surplus food to charities and other organisations who can ensure it reaches people who need it.
Currently, there are few incentives for farmers to donate their surplus food for redistribution and cost is a significant barrier.
A survey of farmers carried out amongst Farmers Weekly readers showed that less than 20% distributed their excess food to charities.23 Meanwhile 40% sent food to be used as animal feed, with a similar number rotavating surplus crops back into the ground. Yet this same survey showed that if all the options were cost-free, nearly half would choose to distribute their surplus food to charities.
Farmers stand ready to play their part. But they are facing well-documented financial pressures, and they need to know that doing so will not leave them out of pocket.
Ongoing post-Brexit changes to the UK’s farming subsidies offer an opportunity to address this challenge. Defra’s new Environmental Land Management Schemes aim to make farming more sustainable – creating incentives for good land management and environmental stewardship, using the principle of ‘public money for public goods’.24
Under this model, the redistribution of surplus food that cannot be sold could be classed as a public good, based on its environmental and social impact. Expanding the payments made under the Sustainable Farming Incentive would allow farmers to cover the costs of harvesting, preparing, packaging, processing and distributing this food.
This should not replace other payments already being used to support farmers through the scheme. But adding this incentive – set at a fair level to guard against overproduction of surplus food – would provide the financial security that farmers need to be able to redistribute their surplus in the most ecologically sound way. This would ensure that sustainable food production is put at the heart of the Environmental Land Management Schemes.

What would it cost?
Surplus food production is affected by a range of factors including weather conditions and fluctuations in consumer demand. This means that exact costs would vary by year – but if implemented in full, the measure would be expected to average just £47 million per year, as calculated for FareShare by the Andersons Centre.25 This would be less than 0.2% of the current £2.4 billion budget for farming schemes.
Before committing to widescale implementation, we are calling on the government to undertake a small trial of the scheme, with the comparatively modest cost of £3 million.
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References
WRAP (2019) Food waste in primary production in the UK. Available at: https://wrap.org.uk/resources/report/food-waste-primary-production-uk.
WRAP (2021) Surplus food redistribution in the UK 2015 to 2020. Available at: https://wrap.org.uk/resources/report/surplus-food-redistribution-uk-2015-2020.
Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (2024) Food and drink waste hierarchy: deal with surplus and waste. Available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/food-and-drink-waste-hierarchy-deal-with-surplus-and-waste/food-and-drink-waste-hierarchy-deal-with-surplus-and-waste
Farmers Weekly (2024). Fareshare Partner With Farmers To Get Surplus Food To Charity. (Forthcoming)
Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (2024) Future of farming in England. Available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/future-of-farming-in-england.
The Andersons Centre (2023) Farming Incentive (SFI) Standard for Surplus Food.