Agriculture in Wales – the Law Commission’s scoping report

By Rosie Lewis

25 Feb 2026 2 min read

The divergence of Welsh and English law governing farming and agriculture looks set to continue with the Law Commission publishing its scoping report on Agricultural Law in Wales.

Agricultural law in Wales is currently spread across a high volume of laws which are not necessarily easy to find or understand.

Devolution and the UK's exit from the EU has left agricultural law in Wales fragmented and, in some instances, out of date. The Law Commission has carried out a technical review of 150 different pieces of legislation governing various aspects of agricultural law, including:

the Agriculture Acts
laws aimed at protecting the environment, wildlife and natural resources
laws concerning the health and welfare of livestock
laws concerning plants, forestry and hedgerows
laws concerning agricultural tenancies and other land management matters.

The aim is to assess which pieces of legislation can be incorporated into a Code of Agricultural Law for Wales as part of the Welsh Government's ongoing project to make the law in Wales more accessible.

This report does not make any recommendations of changes to Welsh farming policy or to the substance of the legislation under review, but such matters may be picked up in later phases of the project.

It is likely to be some time before we see real progress on the proposed Code, however. It has been over 2 years since the Welsh Government published the responses to the consultation on its white paper: A new tribunal system for Wales with no further update. Senedd elections later this year could also see profound political change in the Welsh Government.

In the meantime, we are still waiting for the Law Commission to begin its review of agricultural tenancies in England and Wales, and for a Welsh equivalent of the Agricultural Landlord and Tenant Code of Practice for England to be published.

Watch this space.