I don’t disagree with Defra funding up to £650k of training for their internal team… but I don’t wholly agree with it either.
If we want better policy, then the people making decisions do need to understand how farming actually works. The variability, the risk, the seasonality, and the reality of running a farm business. That gap has been talked about for years, and rightly so.
But where I struggle is when I look at it through a more commercial lens. Because good investment is not just about intent, it is about how well it has been thought through and what it actually delivers.
This is not really about training. It is about capability.
Training on its own does not solve the problem. What matters is whether it actually changes how decisions are made.
In any business, you would start with a really simple question: what are we solving for? And then you would look at where you are starting from.
What do people already know? Where are the gaps? Who actually needs this training, and at what level?
And also, what should people already be doing themselves?
Because there is a level of self-responsibility that comes with any role. If you are working in agriculture policy, I would expect you to be engaging with the sector as a starting point. Reading the industry press, listening to farmers, understanding the basics. That is not training, that is the job.
Are we building expertise… or just catching up?
This is where it gets a bit more uncomfortable.
Is this about fair access to training, or should there be some expectation that people demonstrate the need, the potential impact, and a level of self-driven learning before they are put through it?
I am not sure a formal training programme is going to land in the right way for someone who has never picked up a copy of Farmers Weekly or Farmers Guardian. I would see that as a bare minimum. It is certainly something I would expect of my own team if they are working in an industry.
So what is this programme trying to do?
Is it building deeper capability in the right places so that decisions improve? Or is it bringing a large group of people up to a basic level of understanding?
Both have value, but they are not the same thing. One is about improving outcomes. The other is about catching up.
The biggest gap: impact
The question that matters most is not what people are being taught, but what changes as a result.
What does success actually look like? How will we know if this has worked? And how does it show up in better decisions for farmers and the wider food system?
At the moment, there is very little publicly available information on how the outcomes of this training will be tracked or reported. That feels like a gap.
Because without that, it is very hard to know whether this is money well spent or simply well-intentioned.
In any commercial setting, you would not get sign-off on a budget like this without being clear on how you are measuring success and what return you expect to see. That should not change just because it is public money.
Why transparency matters
This is not about criticising the decision to invest in training. It is about holding it to the same standard we would expect anywhere else.
Being clearer on who is being selected, what level they are starting from, and how success will be measured would strengthen this programme. Not weaken it.
It would also help build trust with the people this ultimately affects, which is farmers. Because at the moment, they are being asked to have confidence in something they cannot really see.
Done well, this could be significant
If this is done well, it could make a real difference. Better understanding should lead to better decisions, and that should lead to better outcomes on farm.
But without that structure and clarity, there is a risk it becomes another well-intentioned exercise that does not quite land where it matters most.
And that is the real issue.
It is not the £650k. It is whether it delivers.
The question we should be asking
This is not about whether training is needed. It clearly is.
The question is how it is being approached.
Is it being treated as something everyone gets access to, regardless of starting point? Or is it being used to build capability where it will actually change outcomes?
Because one spreads knowledge. The other improves decisions.
And agriculture needs the latter.