Built to Adapt: The People, Farms and Partnerships Behind a Resilient Food Supply Chain
Resilience has always been part of agriculture. But the weather of the last few years has brought the importance of farming resilience into much sharper focus. According to the Met Office, 2025 was the UK’s warmest year on record, while England experienced its second-driest spring since records began in 1836. Then, in 2026, the UK experienced its hottest summer on record. For farming businesses, these are more than weather statistics. Too much rain can leave soils saturated and vulnerable to compaction. Prolonged dry conditions can put pressure on grass growth, forage availability and water resources. Extreme heat creates further challenges for livestock, land and the people working on it. And increasingly, farms need to be able to cope with both extremes.
“Farming has always had to deal with change, but the speed and extremes we are now seeing make resilience more important than ever,” says Adam Buitelaar, CEO of Buitelaar Group. “For me, resilience is about building farming systems and businesses that are strong enough to keep moving through drought, heavy rainfall, market pressure and whatever else comes next. “That starts with the soil, but it doesn’t stop there. It’s also about the people, the commercial model and the relationships around the farm. If any one of those are weak, the whole system becomes more vulnerable.”
At Buitelaar Group, we see resilience as something that runs throughout the food supply chain. It starts with the soil and the people managing the livestock and land, but it also depends on sustainable farming businesses, long-term partnerships and strong connections between farmers and customers. Because a resilient food system isn't built in one place. It is built together.
Resilience Starts Below Ground: Why Soil Health Matters.
Healthy soil is fundamental to a resilient farming system. During periods of heavy rainfall, well-structured soil with less compaction can allow water to infiltrate more effectively. In dry conditions, soil structure, organic matter, living roots and ground cover can all help the soil retain and make better use of the moisture available. That doesn't make a farm immune to drought or extreme rainfall. But it can help create a farming system that is better able to withstand periods of pressure. This thinking sits at the heart of our regenerative agriculture work. Prumpelstown Estate is Buitelaar Group's Project Regen pilot farm. It is where we first put regenerative principles into practice and tested different approaches, before taking that learning into the wider Project Regen programme. At Prumpelstown, this has included diverse herbal leys and multi-species swards, mob grazing, maintaining ground cover and reducing unnecessary soil disturbance. Different plant species create different rooting structures, with some reaching further into the soil profile to access moisture and nutrients. Those living roots also support the biological activity that underpins healthy soil. “Prumpelstown Estate has been incredibly important for us because it gave us the opportunity to try things ourselves first,” Adam explains. “We could look at the soil, the grazing, the plant diversity and the cattle together and understand what was actually happening in a commercial farming system. Project Regen is about taking that learning and working with our farmer partners to apply the principles in ways that make sense for their own farms. “The end goal is resilience. We want farms that are productive, commercially sustainable and better able to withstand increasingly unpredictable conditions.”
Building Resilient Farming Businesses
Project Regen is Buitelaar Group's wider regenerative farming programme, working with farmer partners across different farms and farming systems. Its purpose is broader than adopting a particular grazing method or seed mix. It is about resilience. That means soils that are better able to manage periods of too much or too little water. It means productive farming systems that can continue supporting livestock through changing conditions. And it means farming businesses that can remain sustainable and viable as environmental, economic and market pressures evolve.
Regenerative agriculture is not a fixed recipe. Every farm is different. Soil, rainfall, topography, infrastructure and commercial objectives all vary, so the principles need to be applied in ways that work for individual farming businesses. It is also not a solution to drought, flooding or extreme weather. What it can do is help build greater resilience into the system through healthier soils, greater plant diversity, better use of natural resources and continued learning. For regenerative farming to have a long-term future, it also must work commercially for farmers. Environmental resilience and business resilience need to sit alongside one another. That is why measurement is such an important part of our approach. Across Project Regen, we are continuously assessing, testing and learning from what we are doing. The aim is to understand how the farming system is changing over time, where progress is being made and where we need to adapt our approach. Independent verification adds another layer of credibility. Through Regenified, participating farms can have their progress independently assessed against recognised regenerative agriculture principles, giving confidence that the work being carried out is being measured and verified beyond our own internal assessment.
How Farm Resilience Supports a Resilient Food Supply Chain
What happens on farm does not stay on farm. Weather can affect grass growth, forage availability, livestock performance and ultimately the availability of food further along the supply chain.
That is why farm resilience and supply-chain resilience are so closely connected. For more than a century, Buitelaar has worked between farmers and customers, building relationships across agriculture and food production. That gives us visibility in both directions. Understanding what is happening at farm level helps businesses further along the supply chain plan and respond, while understanding customer requirements allows those expectations to be communicated back through the chain. Data, communication, consistency and long-term planning all help create a supply chain that can continue to function when conditions change.
Resilience Is Built Together
No farm or business can build resilience in isolation. Agriculture depends on farmers, vets, nutritionists, processors, hauliers, researchers, customers and many other specialists working together.
Long-term relationships allow knowledge to move through that network. One farmer's experience can help another. Research can inform changes in practice. Customer requirements can be communicated back to the farm. Challenges can be addressed collectively rather than businesses trying to solve them independently.
Behind all of that are people. People make the decisions, test new ideas, solve problems and share the knowledge that allows farms and businesses to improve. Resilience is often built through hundreds of those decisions over many years.
Built to Adapt
The last few years have shown how quickly farming conditions can move from one extreme to another. We cannot control when it rains, how hot the next summer will be or every pressure facing a farming business.
What we can influence is the resilience of the systems operating within those conditions. That means:
• Healthier soils.
• Farming systems that can better withstand extreme weather.
• Productive and viable farming businesses.
• Long-term partnerships.
• Strong connections between farm and customer.
• People with the knowledge and confidence to adapt.
Prumpelstown gives us the opportunity to test and continuously learn. Project Regen allows us to take those learnings further. Independent verification helps ensure that progress is being assessed credibly.
But ultimately, resilience has to deliver beyond the farm gate. The aim is to help build a food supply chain that can continue to provide quality, consistency and reliability even as the conditions around it change.
Because resilient farming is not only about protecting soils or supporting individual farm businesses. It is about helping ensure that farmers can continue producing, supply chains can continue operating and customers can continue relying on the food they need. And as weather patterns, markets and agriculture continue to change, that work becomes increasingly important. For more than 100 years, Buitelaar has worked alongside farmers, customers and partners as agriculture has evolved and whilst the challenges may change, the principle remains the same.
Resilience isn't about avoiding change. It is about building farms, businesses and relationships capable of continuing through it – and delivering a consistent, reliable food supply at the other end.
Connecting Farmer and Consumer since 1922.
