The future of farming depends on systemic shifts across the supply chain

Experts speaking at the 2026 Oxford Farming Conference warn that radical changes are urgently needed across the supply chain to secure a resilient future for farming.

On Thursday 8^th January 2026, Mike Rivington, Senior Scientist at James Hutton Institute, Jack Bobo, Executive Director at UCLA Rothman Family Institute for Food Studies, and Laura Lukasik, Founder and President of Numen Bio, will look forward to the future of farming, the opportunities and potential for growth.

Visualising farming with 2°C of warming

“Food systems are facing multiple pressures – climate change, biodiversity loss and ecosystem degradation - against a backdrop of a risk perception deficit, geopolitical uncertainty and economic change,” explains Mike.

Mike, who studies climate change impacts on land use, natural capital and ecosystem services will highlight in his OFC session the productive, financial, climatic, and institutional resilience, and how agriculture could, through regenerative economies, become sustainable, investable, scalable, and future-ready. 

“A 2°C warming at a global level will have substantial impacts on how key ecosystems function, and natural process - such as ocean current circulation - influence the climate and the weather we will experience in the future,” says Mike.

“It is likely that some regions in the UK will, in some years, have favourable growing conditions that increase yields, but my greatest concern is the increasing probability of having two or even three years in a row where agriculture is affected by a range of negative impacts. This will stress-test the economic viability of farm businesses.”

Challenging cultural norms

Building resilience in food systems of the future, he says, will require significant changes at every link in the supply chain. Many are physical – such as increasing storage to buffer production fluctuations and greater flexibility in supplier contacts - but some are cultural.

“There needs to be an improved relationship between farmers, the supply chain and the scientific community to develop adaptation responses,” he says. “One example is the need to change the culture of data sharing to enable science to better develop modelling tools to support real-time management decisions and longer-term strategic planning by farmers.” 

The point is echoed by Laura, who is globally recognised for founding Latin America’s first agtech start-up in agricultural risk management, Laura now co-develops regenerative portfolios with farmers across Latin America and Africa. She will be using a range of visualisation and modelling approaches to illustrate what future climates mean for agriculture in the UK.

“Systems don’t change because of technology or regulation. They change when the connections between farmers, science, markets, and institutions finally work.”

“A regenerative economy is not an environmental aspiration — it is an economic redesign. 
It means treating nature as an asset that generates long-term value, and farmers as essential partners in managing that asset,” explains Laura.

With many of the required farm-level regeneration adaptations already well known – planting of trees, enhancing soil biology, reducing synthetic inputs, for example – Laura points to the systemic barriers hindering adoption.

“Without a redesigned enabling architecture, farming cannot unlock its full potential. Clearer rules, better access to capital and fairer risk distribution, would all help facilitate a more resilient food production system.

“It is about coherence: governments providing stable rules and capital pathways; science translating into practice; companies taking real risk; academia linking knowledge to adoption; farmers organising to capture value and build resilience; and society recognising the structural role of farmers.” 

Jack Bobo, who is renowned for bringing an interdisciplinary approach to reshaping food policy and sustainability, also highlights the importance engaging with consumers.

“All of the problems we face require collaboration, yet that has never been so difficult,” he says. “In many ways, the consumer has never cared more nor known less about how their food is produced. This polarisation is one of the greatest challenges; we need to do a better job of communicating with the public,” he says.

Hope for the future

Jack also emphasises the progress farming has made in recent decades.

“Undoubtedly the fact that 10% of people go to bed hungry is a disaster.  But 30 years ago, 20% of the population was in food poverty. We produce dramatically more food today than we did in 1960 on more or less the same amount of land. Food production has increased faster than population growth, which is why the number of hungry people has declined.

“That progress has come through radical change, innovation and the adoption of technology. Farms were one of the first places to see self-driving vehicles. In many ways, farmers have always been living the in future.”

To hear Laura, Mike and Jack discuss, in depth, the future of farming, book your digital ticket to the Oxford Farming Conference. The session will be streamed live, and later, available on demand.