Beans should be a mainstay in livestock feeds: it’s time for UK agriculture to take its pulse, says John McArthur.
The Defra Farming Roadmap was released on 24 June 2026 after significant anticipation across the sector. It describes the government’s long-term strategies, reforms and commitments for farming together in one place. More profitable, productive, sustainable and resilient. In her foreword, The Right Honourable Emma Reynolds MP, Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, recommits to farming as a matter of national security.
One marginalised crop helps deliver on all fronts: pulses.
Pulses, such as beans and peas, fix nitrogen, reducing fertiliser reliance. They diversify arable rotations, improving soil health, protecting water quality and supporting biodiversity. They produce protein from British fields, which can reduce livestock feed emissions and provide nutritious plant protein for human food.
They get mentioned once, as a diversification opportunity meeting future demand for plant-based food. This fails to recognise the scale of the feed and food opportunities for pulses, especially in livestock feed, and how significantly they can contribute to the Roadmap’s vision for farming in 2050.
Britain imports large volumes of high-protein soya bean meal to feed animals while barely using the protein crops it can grow itself.
Britain imports large volumes of high-protein soya bean meal to feed animals while barely using the protein crops it can grow itself. The Roadmap names many of the functions pulses can help deliver in the farming system but fails to recognise the strategic role they can play in livestock feed.
AIC’s 2024 data shows the UK imported 2.39 million tonnes of soya bean meal for animal feed, around 15% of total UK feed volume. Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay supplied 78% of the soya bean meal entering the UK market. Pig and poultry sectors accounted for 1.83 million tonnes, 77% of the total.
The 15% figure can mislead. Pig and poultry feed is mainly cereals, which supply energy. Cereals are short on protein, and more specifically on the balance of amino acids that pigs and poultry need to turn that energy into meat and eggs efficiently. Soya bean meal corrects that gap more cost effectively than almost any plant protein available at scale. It is consistent, established and readily available for nutritionists to formulate with.
Alternatives exist, but today they face nutritional, availability or cost limitations compared with soya bean meal. In 2024, pulses contributed less than 1% of total UK feed inclusion.
The feed sector is driven by least-cost formulation, the lowest-price combination of ingredients that delivers the nutritional requirements. Economically rational ingredient choice by nutritionists and feed manufacturers has become a strategic exposure at food system level.
Reliance on soya bean meal is an unhedged bet.
If supply of soya bean meal became sharply constrained, feed mills would reformulate with rapeseed meal, sunflower meal, peas, beans, synthetic amino acids and other alternatives to maintain optimal nutrition and livestock performance. However, there are not enough suitable substitute proteins at the right quality, volume, price and availability to replace soya bean meal at national scale.
Reliance on soya bean meal is an unhedged bet on continuing access to globally traded commodities in an increasingly unstable world.
A sudden cut-off is possible but unlikely. Ports can close, shipping can be disrupted and trade disputes can erupt. Currency and political shocks present further risks. The implication of these is serious, but the probability is low. The bigger risk is chronic.
Deforestation rules are tightening. The EU Deforestation Regulation and the UK’s own, recently announced, deforestation regulations will raise the bar on traceability and land-use assurance. Retailer zero-deforestation pledges, SBTi targets, Scope 3 reporting and mandatory climate disclosure are all moving in the same direction (see box: Why feed matters to retailer carbon targets). Soya bean meal is becoming a problem in the boardroom for livestock supply chains. Its production in South America has long been associated with deforestation and land use change that results in significant carbon emissions. Verified deforestation and conversion free soya in segregated supply chains are currently limited and considerably more expensive. The era of cheap, uncomplicated soya bean meal supply may be ending. These forces are repricing soya bean meal, which for decades has set the market price for feed protein, making domestic alternatives more competitive.
The WWF, The Future of Feed report, attributes 75% of total poultry emissions to feed and 60% for pigs. South American soya bean meal is the problem ingredient because of the emissions associated with deforestation and land-use change.
Emissions reductions made within a supply chain are known as insets, rather than offsets. Because they reduce the retailer’s own Scope 3 footprint, they are more valuable than buying unrelated credits. For retailers and downstream businesses with SBTi targets, insets cut the emissions they are actually accountable for.
The Madre Brava report prices several routes to emission reduction for retailers, including diet shifts, food waste reduction and farming practice changes. Across the on-farm measures it models, not one changes what livestock are fed. Feed is named as part of the problem, then left off the list of fixes.
Improved soya production practice is necessary, but it is not the single solution to our livestock feed protein demand. It keeps the protein production in long, overseas supply chains produced in degrading ecosystems the Government’s own nature-security assessment identifies as a direct risk to UK food production.
If livestock supply chains are being asked to pay more for lower-impact soya bean meal, it is time to re-assess what can be achieved domestically.
The Defra-funded NCS Project has trialled homegrown processed beans against imported soya bean meal in broiler diets. Inclusion rates of up to 30% of beans reduced soya bean meal inclusion by 68%, while maintaining bird performance and reducing emissions per kg bodyweight by 35%. Feed cost rose by around 7%, from £0.41 to £0.44 per kg bodyweight.
The 7% increase in feed cost sounds material, but by the time it reaches the shelf it could mean only six to eight pence on a whole chicken. The emissions reduction created inside the supply chain has value for the retailer, and that value could carry the cost without requiring a price rise for consumers.
The displacement will scale incrementally. By 2040, homegrown pulses could reasonably replace around 600,000 tonnes of soya bean meal in UK feed, around a quarter of current inclusion, with half as a more ambitious stretch target.
As the cost of the price-setting soya bean meal increases, there is an opportunity to build demand for homegrown pulses.
Why are pulses overlooked? In a world of least-cost feed formulation, they are an expensive source of livestock nutrition compared with soya bean meal. However, as regulatory and environmental drivers re-price South American soya bean meal, the gap will start to narrow.
That explains why feed buyers have overlooked pulses. It does not explain why farmers have not grown more of them.
The return for UK farmers on growing pulses has been historically poor. Pulse yields are more variable than cereals and markets are less reliable. They suffer from a lack of attention because their importance to the profitability of farming businesses is seen by many as marginal. There has been little demand from the feed industry too. The processing capacity required to turn harvested beans into high-value feed ingredients is limited, as is the nutritional understanding and industry experience formulating feed with them.
Using current new crop prices and recent-average yields, Hutchinsons’ Harvest 2027 gross margin guide points to first wheat at about £500/ha, oilseed rape at about £650/ha and winter beans closer to £300/ha. The precise figures will change by farm, season and market but the signal is clear enough. On headline margin, beans typically sit behind the main combinable crops and carry more yield risk. Pulses deliver rotational benefits, including support for following crops, but those benefits are harder to price. In a period when many arable businesses are already under pressure, choosing lower gross margins for intangible gains is not an easy choice.
As the cost of the price-setting soya bean meal increases, there is an opportunity to build demand for homegrown pulses. A reliable feed market that offers fair prices would give growers a reason to put pulses back into rotations. It would give processors a reason to invest in infrastructure and develop consistent feed ingredient specifications. It would give breeders and agronomists a clearer signal to invest in improving crop yields and consistency, further supporting gross margins realised by farmers.
Feed can deliver short-term scale and food is a longer-term growth opportunity.
This does not mean feed instead of food for pulses. Feed can deliver short-term scale and food is a longer-term growth opportunity. Britain should eat more pulses, but dietary change is slow. A stronger feed market will build the planted area, processing capacity, breeding and agronomy that a future food market will need.
More beans in the trough today is how Britain gets more beans on the plate tomorrow.
The Farming Roadmap provides the vision. Homegrown pulses in feed and food are one way this can be delivered at scale. It has sector growth plans, with poultry among the early priorities. Domestic pulses in feed need to feature in this poultry sector growth plan, as well as in the future combinable crop sector growth plan that will follow.
Public support should de-risk the investment in pulse processing capacity that does not yet exist to serve the livestock sector. It should continue to support applied research into pulse production and use in feed and food. It should harness retailer Scope 3 demand to provide the commercial incentive for pulse inclusion in upstream supply chains. It should also support early demand through pulse crop support in the upcoming SFI27 scheme.
The Roadmap wants lower-input, lower-emission, more resilient farming. Homegrown pulses can help deliver that. The route to scale starts with feed.
