Who Will Grow Our Food in Ten Years? Riverford on the Future of Food Security

Extreme weather, ageing farmers and increasingly fragile international supply chains are forcing retailers to rethink where their food will come from. Riverford is already looking well beyond the next harvest. Alex Maier from Riverford joins The Retail Hive’s Vivek Gulati to discuss the resilience of organic farming, why long-term grower relationships matter and how AI could help secure the future of food production.

Vivek: Food supply chains are particularly exposed to changing growing conditions. How is Riverford responding to climate change, and what does that mean for the wider UK food supply?

Alex: I think this is a much bigger topic than Riverford. It’s about food security for the UK as a whole.

We’re in contact with other businesses and growers, both organic and conventional, and everyone is dealing with the effects of climate change.

I do think organic farming has some natural advantages. Traditionally, organic farmers have a stronger connection to sustainability, soil health and biodiversity. A well-managed organic farm, with healthy soil and a diverse ecosystem, is generally more resilient than one that’s heavily dependent on chemical inputs.

But we’re still facing significant challenges.

This year, we’ve seen drought combined with extreme temperatures. You can have several days of 30°C, 35°C or even 38°C. At those temperatures, even if you’re watering your crops, the plants can suffer heat stress.

Then, in winter, you can get huge amounts of rain in a very short period. If the soil is compacted or degraded, that water can’t penetrate effectively. It runs off, taking valuable topsoil with it.

Healthy soil is much better at absorbing and retaining water, which is becoming increasingly important.

We know many of the answers already. We need healthier soils, greater biodiversity and better water management. The question is how we put those principles into practice at scale.

Vivek: Where can technology make a difference? Is there an opportunity to manage those resources more intelligently?

Alex: Absolutely. This is where it gets really exciting.

We can now put probes into fields to measure soil moisture and identify precisely where water is needed.

Instead of irrigating an entire field, you can target specific areas. You can also measure soil health and nutrient levels to understand what different parts of the farm actually need.

It’s about using data to be much more precise and resourceful with the water we have.

AI can help us analyse that information and make better decisions, whether that’s how much water to apply, where to apply it or how to improve growing conditions.

And this isn’t just a UK issue.

Look at southern Spain, where a lot of our fruit and vegetables are grown. They’re facing severe drought, extreme heat and fires. Spain is investing in solutions such as desalination and water storage, but we have to ask what those growing regions will look like in ten years.

Will they still be able to produce the volumes we need? Or will we have to look further north, towards areas with less extreme climates?

That’s something the whole food industry needs to think about.

Vivek: For Riverford specifically, how does that uncertainty affect your sourcing strategy? Organic produce represents a relatively small part of the market, so presumably it’s harder to find alternatives when a crop fails?

Alex: So far, we’ve managed well.

This year was the first time things started to get a little tight. We saw delays, with some crops coming through later than expected, but we haven’t reached a point where we couldn’t supply our customers.

I think our supply chain is quite resilient. But our bigger challenge isn’t necessarily this year or next year. It’s where we’ll be in five or ten years, particularly as we want to grow.

We’re already thinking about our backup plans. If growing conditions change in Spain or Italy, what other regions could we source from? What are our plan B and plan C?

Our priority is to source as much as possible from the UK, reducing transport mileage and our carbon footprint. We then look to Europe.

Around 80% of our supply comes from the UK and 20% from Europe. There are a few products, such as bananas, that we have to source from further afield, but we’re not dependent on a global sourcing network in the same way as many other retailers.

That gives us some protection from international disruption.

There’s also the question of agricultural inputs. Conventional farming depends heavily on fertilisers and chemicals, many of which come from international suppliers.

We’ve seen how geopolitical events can affect their availability and price. Those dependencies create another layer of vulnerability.

Organic farming isn’t immune to supply chain challenges, but because we’re less reliant on those inputs, we’re exposed to a different set of risks.

For Riverford, the combination of local sourcing, sustainable farming practices and close relationships with our growers puts us in a relatively strong position.

Vivek: You mentioned looking five or ten years ahead. Beyond climate change, what else concerns you about the future of your supply base?

Alex: One of our biggest concerns is the next generation of farmers.

It’s not just an organic farming problem. Across the UK, many small and medium-sized farms are run by people who are getting older.

Who’s going to take over those farms? Who’s going to grow our food in the future?

For many farming families, the next generation looks at the work involved, the hours and the financial returns and decides they don’t want to do it.

Of course, there are passionate young people who believe in organic farming and want to build a future in it. But there are also farms where nobody knows who will take over.

And there are other challenges. Farmers don’t always own their land. They may be leasing it from a trust or another landowner, which can make it difficult to justify long-term investment in equipment or improvements.

So we need to think about how we support the people producing our food.

Vivek: How does Riverford approach that relationship? What can retailers do to give growers more security?

Alex: We work very closely with our grower community, and a big part of that is making sure we’re fair in our contracts and commitments.

Take potatoes or cabbages, for example. We might need to plan those crops 12 or 18 months in advance.

We’re asking a farmer to buy seeds or young plants, put them in the ground and commit to growing a certain volume for us.

In return, we make a commitment to buy that crop at an agreed price.

And when we get to the end of those 18 months, if we don’t have the demand we expected, we still take it.

Of course, we need some flexibility on both sides, but we don’t just walk away and leave the farmer with the problem.

That’s an important part of the partnership.

Vivek: But what happens if you suddenly find yourself with far more cabbages than you need?

Alex: We have to find ways to use them!

We have a wholesale channel, so we can sell some of the surplus there. We can also adjust the contents of our veg boxes or make special offers.

If we’ve got more potatoes than expected, for example, we might put a few extra potatoes into the boxes that week.

There are also other businesses that come to us looking for organic produce from time to time. If we have something available, we can offer it to them.

It takes extra effort. There’s more planning and more work involved in balancing the range and finding alternative channels. But we do our best to honour our commitments and support our growers.

That close partnership is what helps us get through difficult periods. And looking ahead, I think it’s going to become even more important.

Vivek: We’ve talked about the challenges facing farmers, but also some of the opportunities technology presents. How far do you think data and AI could help secure the future of food production?

Alex: I think there’s enormous potential, provided we use it for the right purposes.

We’ve talked about measuring soil health and moisture levels, but you can go much further.

You can measure insect density or monitor biodiversity by recording birdsong and using AI to analyse which birds are present.

There are so many ways to use technology to understand what’s happening on a farm and make better decisions.

We’re starting to experiment with soil moisture probes and other technologies to make our watering systems more precise.

The objective is to achieve better growing outcomes while using fewer resources and reducing our impact on nature.

Of course, technology has its downsides. Not everything is wonderful. But I think we should be talking about the positive applications as well.

For me, there’s a real opportunity to combine modern technology with the principles of sustainable farming.

Vivek: Finally, you’ve come into food from a different industry. Has working at Riverford changed how you think about the food system?

Alex: Completely.

I came from the automotive and life sciences industries, working for large corporates. I’ve always been interested in food and understood that what we eat is important for our health.

But it was only when I started working with real food, about four and a half years ago, that I began to understand how broken parts of our food system are.

I hadn’t appreciated how dependent we are on international supply chains, how much processed food has become part of our diets or the impact of the way we produce food on nature.

When you’re not working in this world, a lot of that isn’t obvious. It’s not necessarily something you see in the mainstream news.

I think we need to have a much bigger conversation about food security and what our plans are as a country.

Climate change, the next generation of farmers, our dependence on agricultural inputs and the resilience of our supply chains are all connected.

At Riverford, I think we’re in a good position because of our organic approach, our local sourcing and our relationships with growers.

But these are challenges for the whole food industry. We need to be thinking about them now, not waiting until we find ourselves unable to get the food we need.