The latest Defra figures
1. How big are UK farms?
In 2025 there were about 212,000 agricultural holdings, covering 17 million hectares. The average was 79 hectares, but that average is misleading because the distribution is very unequal.
| Farm size | % of holdings | % of agricultural land |
|---|---|---|
| Under 20 ha | 49% | 4% |
| 20–49 ha | 18% | 8% |
| 50–99 ha | 14% | 13% |
| 100 ha+ | 19% | 75% |
About one farm in five is 100 hectares or larger, but those farms occupy three-quarters of Britain's agricultural land.
That's probably the single most important fact about the structure of British farming.
2. Who actually owns the land?
This is where ownership and farming become two different things.
For England in 2026:
- 6.2 million hectares of agricultural land were owned by the farming businesses/landowners.
- 2.9 million hectares were rented in for at least a year.
Farms aren't necessarily entirely owned or entirely rented
In England in 2025:
| Farm's tenure | % of farms |
|---|---|
| Entirely owner-occupied | 54% |
| Mixed – own some, rent some | 31% |
| Entirely rented | 14% |
| Undeclared | 1% |
But the 54% of farms that are entirely owner-occupied accounted for only 37% of agricultural land. Mixed-tenure farms tend to be considerably larger.
So the typical small farmer is much more likely to own his/her land, whereas large farming businesses are particularly likely to combine owned and rented land.
3. Who are the landlords?
This is where the idea of "big business buying up British farmland" needs some qualification.
Defra asked tenant farmers about their landlords in its 2024 survey:
|
Type
of landlord |
% of tenant-farmer respondents |
|
Private
individual |
69% |
|
Charitable
body/institution |
25% |
|
Corporation/professional
landlord |
12% |
|
Other |
8% |
|
Investment
trust |
4% |
Farmers could give more than one answer because they may rent different parcels from different landlords.
Private individuals remain by far the most commonly reported type of agricultural landlord.
"Big business" and investment funds therefore do own agricultural land, but they aren't the dominant form of agricultural landlord in the available tenant-farmer data.
4. There are actually several different types of "big owner"
This is important because lumping them all together produces a misleading picture.
Traditional estates
Britain still has substantial estates associated with:
- aristocratic families
- historic estates
- universities
- charities
- conservation organisations
- the Crown Estate
- large private landowners
Some have been landowners for centuries.
Family farming businesses
A large farm doesn't necessarily mean a corporation.
A 500-hectare family farm can still be a privately owned family business.
And a large farm may own 250 hectares while renting another 250.
Corporate farming
There are also genuinely corporate agricultural businesses — companies operating substantial farming enterprises, often with professional management and sometimes multiple sites.
Institutional investors
Pension funds, investment companies and other institutions have invested in farmland, although the extent is often exaggerated in popular discussion.
Owning farmland isn't necessarily the same thing as operating a farm. An investor may own the land and lease it to a tenant farmer.
5. Tenants are much more important than the headline suggests
About 32% of English agricultural land is rented for a year or more.
There are two major forms of agricultural tenancy.
Farm Business Tenancies (FBTs) are the modern form and are relatively flexible.
Full Agricultural Tenancies (FATs) are older arrangements, generally dating from before September 1995, and can provide considerably stronger security of tenure and, in some cases, succession rights.
The composition of rented land has changed substantially:
- Full Agricultural Tenancies accounted for about 52% of rented land in 2009
- By 2024 they were down to about 39%
- Farm Business Tenancies rose from about 33% to 44% over the same period.
So the rented sector has become more flexible and commercially oriented.
6. What about the really big farms?
There's an important distinction between farm size and land ownership concentration.
For example, in England in 2025 there were about:
100,000 holdings
of which approximately:
- 39,000 were under 20 ha
- 20,000 were 20–50 ha
- 16,000 were 50–100 ha
- 25,000 were 100 ha+
Those 25,000 holdings controlled about 6.8 million hectares, compared with only 314,000 hectares on the 39,000 smallest holdings.
And Scotland is particularly important to this picture: the average agricultural holding there was 104 hectares, compared with 40 ha in Northern Ireland and 47 ha in Wales. The average among Scottish holdings of at least 20 ha was 286 hectares.
7. And "small farms" can be misleading too
A farm under 20 hectares isn't necessarily a conventional commercial farm supporting a family.
Defra's definition of a commercial holding includes relatively small enterprises, and there are many small farms involved in:
- hobby/small-scale farming
- equestrian activities
- specialist horticulture
- sheep
- livestock
- diversified enterprises
- part-time farming.
This is one reason why "49% of farms are under 20 hectares" shouldn't be interpreted as "49% of British food is produced by small farmers."
The opposite is much closer to reality: large farms produce a disproportionate amount of agricultural output because they control most of the land.
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