Crown Estate Pursues Long-Term Regenerative Agriculture Partnerships with UK Farmers

Image Credit: Crown Estate

The Crown Estate is breaking ground by offering 15-year farm business tenancies (FBTs) to boost regenerative agriculture across its vast UK landholdings. Traditionally, FBTs tend to be short-term, often four years or less, making it challenging for farmers to commit to long-term environmental changes. This brevity limits their ability to invest confidently in sustainable practices that could improve soil health, biodiversity, and income diversity.

One significant missed chance has been for farmers to fully embrace regenerative techniques such as cover cropping, reduced tillage, and hedgerow planting. These methods, designed to enrich soil quality, cut input costs, and nurture biodiversity, often come with upfront expenses, even though benefits emerge over time.

To tackle this, the Crown Estate will roll out 15-year environmental FBTs to all new leases once current agreements expire. These extended tenancies require tenants to propose environmental improvements on at least 15% of their land. Crucially, baseline data on biodiversity and carbon impact will be collected and tracked throughout the tenancy, ensuring measurable progress.

In return, the Crown Estate signals its willingness to support tenants adopting new technologies or diversifying income streams. It is also actively lowering rents on land dedicated to nature recovery efforts.

This model is already in action on two of the Crown Estate’s farms, and three more sites—Abbey Garth Farm in East Yorkshire, Trevethoe House Farm, and Boatmere Farm in Lincolnshire—are open for tender.

As one of the UK’s largest landowners, managing nearly 83,000 hectares of rural land, the Crown Estate’s move reflects a significant shift toward incentivising sustainability.

The initiative also aligns with the Agricultural Landlord and Tenant Code of Practice for England, aiming to support farmers while promoting environmental stewardship.

The Tenant Farmers Association’s chief executive, George Dunn, told Farmers Weekly that the scheme is “an excellent way forward and gives tenants real choice”.

Dunn elaborated: “It’s an open book approach with each agreement giving opportunities for tenants to come forward with ideas for environmental improvements and diversification, with the benefits of both shared between landlord and tenants according to input and risk.”