Our strategy

Across the United Kingdom, rural communities and farming families are living with immense uncertainty amid the relentless pace and scale of economic, climate and societal change. An agricultural revolution is underway and the most significant reforms to farm support in living memory are accelerating, even as farmers’ fields are under-water, their feed and fertiliser costs sky-rocketing, a cost of living crisis has intensified the demand for low food prices, and new animal and plant diseases hover on our shores. The rural voice remains faint against the clamour of bigger, more visible needs, the needs of rural communities frequently overlooked and just as frequently misunderstood, threatening their social and community fabric.

Without our collective help, the people who keep our countryside alive, who produce healthy, home-grown food, the people whose skills and dedication are vital to heal the wounds we’ve inflicted on the natural environment, the people who can keep our countryside the way we expect to find it, who bring next generation energy and talent to keep local services and community life going, struggle to survive.

The Royal Countryside Fund offers these a lifeline to a sustainable future. 70% of our land is under the stewardship of farmers, and one fifth of the population live in rural communities. Every day through The Royal Countryside Fund, we witness the self-help instinct, the resourcefulness and determination of family farms and rural people to carve out a sustainable future for their corner of rural Britain. 

We are the only nationwide charity with this focus. Since we were founded by HM The King, when Prince of Wales, The Royal Countryside Fund has supported more than 1000 farming families and given grants to nearly 500 rural communities. We’ve emulated His Majesty’s lead, connecting people at local level to find solutions to the challenges they have in common, and supporting them to apply those solutions. Our evaluation shows that this model is trusted and it works.

This 2024-2028 strategy is about picking up the pace. We want to paint this picture of what works on a broader canvas, to reach more of the countryside in all four nations, to keep a step ahead of the relentless pressures on agriculture with innovative new business support themes, and to accelerate and differentiate our community programme. We are incredibly honoured to have been renamed The Royal Countryside Fund and we feel deeply the trust this signals from His Majesty. We are determined to use this landmark moment to its greatest advantage and have set our sights high. Our strategy describes an ambitious growth plan, expanding and replicating our model for supporting family farms and rural communities county by county, while tailoring our advice to local circumstances. In tandem, we’ll develop our rural community programmes on that same convening model, aiming to help build confident self-help networks which will survive and thrive beyond our specific intervention, and with a particular focus on the next generation and innovative, repeatable solutions.

Many of our fellow citizens wouldn’t choose to live in ‘the middle of nowhere’, but we know that millions of them feel a great connection to and responsibility for our countryside, for those places which to some of us really are ‘the centre of everything’. The Royal Countryside Fund wants to become the charity of choice for people in the countryside and for everyone who cares about those people and the difference they make, who understands that they are essential to our future countryside on which so much depends. Our strategic ambition depends on building our profile and building our income. We are so grateful to the many, many supporters, advisers and participants who have brought The Royal Countryside Fund to this stage. I hope you’ll be as excited as we are by the direction we are setting. There’s no shortage of opportunity to be involved, and The Royal Countryside Fund looks forward to welcoming your support, guidance and skills over the next four years.