Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many hectares of land have been taken out of food production in the last year.

Agricultural land can be taken out of human food production for a variety of reasons, including for agricultural purposes (for example when it’s used to produce animal feed, as bare fallow within the annual crop rotations or for temporary crops such as leguminous mixes for environmental and soil health benefits). It is therefore not possible to provide accurate data on how much land has been taken out of food production as this can differ each year.

Estimates of the utilised agricultural area in England (which also includes bare fallow and land for environmental benefit) stands at 8.8 million hectares in 2025 and this area has remained broadly stable over the past decade.

Agricultural land area statistics are available here.

Detailed statistics on domestic food production are available in Chapters 7 and 8 in Defra’s Agriculture in the United Kingdom publication.