What does the Chancellor’s Autumn Budget mean for food, farming, health, and land use? Elta Smith, our Policy Champion, ties it all together for us. 

The Autumn Budget 2024 reveals opportunities and challenges for the transition to a net zero agrifood system, with measures spanning nutrition, farming, and environmental sustainability.

Poverty, food and health

Strengthening social support through expanded breakfast clubs and the Household Support Fund acknowledges the critical link between food security and social justice. The inflation-adjusted Soft Drinks Industry Levy demonstrates the government’s commitment to using fiscal levers to shape healthier food environments. 

However, these interventions primarily address symptoms rather than underlying structural challenges in the food system – far more is needed to support public health.

 Agriculture 

The £5 billion agricultural transition package is a significant investment, but will unfold within a challenging context. Maintaining Defra’s £2.4 billion budget provides some stability but represents a real-terms decrease due to inflation. 

Changes to inheritance tax relief while maintaining support for agriculture highlight tensions between traditional farming definitions and the transition to more sustainable land use practices. 

The commitment to equivalence between agricultural and environmental land uses for tax purposes is a sign of progress, though its limitation to public schemes may constrain private investment in nature-based solutions.

Nature

The Chancellor’s approach to decarbonisation infrastructure and environmental protection – including £400 million for tree planting and peatland restoration – signals positive intent and will influence how the food system achieves net zero.

Food system transformation

The critical challenge for food systems transformation will be integrating these separate policy streams into a coherent framework that can deliver a just transition, food security and environmental sustainability. Success will depend on coordinated action across government to support this complex transition.

You can also read our Budget analysis on food and health, and on farming and land use. 

We also have quick-fire summaries of key Budget decisions for farming and the countryside, and for food and health.