Farmers will rally in London to show their anger with devastating impact of Budget
1st November 2024
British farmers will hit London streets later this month to show their dissatisfaction with the government’s new Budget that is going to have a “devastating impact” on their businesses as well as families.
The rally organised by the NFU will take place on Tuesday 19th November at Church House conference centre at Westminster, in central London.
The organiser confirmed it will be able to accommodate about 600 farmers, but many more are expected to arrive in the capital.
NFU president Tom Bradshaw said that after decades of tightening margins, record inflation, extreme weather and increased production costs, many farmers and growers are “at breaking point”, unable to absorb any more cost burden.
The NFU has also warned that the changes announced in the Budget could increase food costs for consumers, adding pressure to many still experiencing the cost-of-living crisis.
Fundamental lack of understanding
Mr Bradshaw added: “Farmers and growers have been left reeling from the changes announced in the Budget, which demonstrate a fundamental lack of understanding of how the British farming sector is shaped and managed. The current plans to change APR and BPR need to be overturned and fast.
“Farmers are rightly angry and concerned about their future and the future of their family farms, having been reassured by minsters in the leadup to the Budget that APR and BPR changes were not on the table.
“The Treasury’s figures, which claim this will only affect one in four British farms are misleading. The £1 million cap to APR shows how little this government understands the sector.
“Very few viable farms would be worth under £1m, but lots of smallholdings and houses with a few acres let for grazing might be. The asset value of genuine food-producing farms will be high, given the size they need to be to remain viable businesses; but that’s the value of the asset, it doesn’t reflect its profitability which is often, and increasingly so, very low.
“Clearly the government does not understand that family farms are not only small farms, and that just because a farm is an asset, it doesn’t mean those who work it are wealthy. Every penny the Chancellor saves from this will come directly from the next generation having to break up their family farm. It simply mustn’t happen.”
The NFU president said that MPs need to understand the consequences of these actions, and this is why the union is mobilising its members for a mass lobby in the coming weeks.
“British farmers will ask their MPs to look them in the eye and tell them whether they support this.
“There’s still time for the government to accept they’ve got this wrong, and my message to ministers is that they should do the right thing and reverse this awful family farm tax,”Mr Bradshaw concluded.
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