Lloyds Bank: Growing our support for farmers everywhere

Lloyds Bank is funding a programme of bespoke, on-farm consultancy for up to 1,000 of our largest agriculture customers across the UK, to help farmers improve the ecological footprint and overall sustainability of their operations.

This new, sustainable farming consultancy service works alongside the Soil Association, and is designed to help farmers identify financial and environmental advantages for their land. 

© Lloyds Bank

The new consultancy service will help farmers to:

Measure: the climate, nature and health outcomes that they are delivering on farm.

Improve: the ecological health and performance of their farm, through receiving tailored agriculture advice.

Receive: financial benefits for positive outcomes.

The new service covers soil health, carbon emissions, water quality, biodiversity, animal health and safety, and the social impacts of the farm.

It would involve data collection, farm visits, practice and impact scenario tools, the creation of farm action plans and reviews to measure impact of changes over time.

Lessons from these farms will then be used to help create advice, guidance and support that can be applied across the agriculture industry, as it seeks to achieve its target of Net Zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2040.

“After my meeting with the Soil Association representatives, I now have a clearer understanding of carbon capture and the role it plays in climate change.

The Soil Association have done a comprehensive study across the farm to ascertain carbon levels. From this we will be able to see not only what we need to do, but also what potential there is for new income sources.”

Roger Ashby, Owner of Ashby Farms

Additional support

We now offer discounted finance for initiatives that make farms more sustainable, with one percentage point margin discount lending on loans of up to £50,000.

The new, sustainable agriculture financing scheme builds on the success of our comprehensive Clean Growth Financing Initiative for agriculture loans over £50k, where eligible clients can benefit from 0% arrangement fees. This is in addition to the £1.6bn in financial support for the agriculture sector over the last two years.

We’ve also increased the size of our dedicated agriculture relationship team, adding to the team of commercial banking professionals already trained to advise businesses on a range of issues, including climate change and sustainability-related risks.

“It’s fantastic to see Lloyds Bank announce support for farming’s Net Zero ambition at this extremely difficult time for the sector. It’s important that our investors back climate-smart farming with business resilience, and Lloyds will help deliver this with on-the-ground, practical support to farms across the UK.”

Minette Batters, President of National Farmers Union

This is, of course, a challenging time for the agriculture sector, as farms face high and rising costs, and we’re helping our customers to deal with those issues every day.

But the direct impact of our changing climate hasn’t gone away, and so we want to help farms tackle the root cause of these challenges, accelerating their race to Net Zero to become more economically and environmentally sustainable in the medium and long term. 

The agriculture sector is world-beating. It has shown its ability to adapt and innovate to provide high-quality food to the domestic and international market, and we’re proud and fully committed to continue our support for the sector with this new, sustainable consultancy service.

To speak to us directly, or for more information on the support available to help you and your industry achieve Net Zero, click below. 

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All lending is subject to status. Lloyds Bank plc. Authorised by the Prudential Regulation Authority and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority and the Prudential Regulation Authority under Registration Number 119278.