NFU calls for government to reset its relationship with British farming

In his first opening address at the NFU's annual conference, held earlier this week in Westminster, NFU President Tom Bradshaw highlighted how the cash flow crisis, botched agricultural transition and rock bottom business confidence, compounded by the hammer blow of the unexpected family farm tax, are preventing investment and growth within farming.

But he also emphasised that the NFU remains focused on providing solutions, as demonstrated last week when the organisation offered the Treasury a solution to the disastrous inheritance tax policy.

According to the NFU, it will be providing these solutions in its newly launched Blueprints for Growth2.

Speaking to more than 700 members, politicians, and stakeholders at the conference, as well as hundreds more online, NFU President Tom Bradshaw said: “Our conference this year is framed around the foundations for the future. However hard things are, we must meet the challenges ahead.

“There were only 87 words in Labour's manifesto about farming, but some of those words gave us hope for the future; policies on imports, binding targets for British food for the public sector, the recognition that food security is national security.

He added: “We recognise these are still early days for a new government, but new ministers had hardly found their way to their offices when they broke their first promise. And it’s one which overshadows all else, wiping out our ability to plan, to invest and, often, to hope. It hangs over our farms, our families, our futures: the family farm tax.

“This policy is morally wrong. I have received hundreds of desperate messages, taken hundreds of panicked calls.

“I worry about the tenant farmer whose home and livelihood may be taken away, because a landlord is often better off taking their land back in hand. I worry about former tenants too. People who have scraped everything together, risked it all to finally buy their farm and are now facing an unpayable bill.

“I worry about the next generation, whose entire future in the industry is now in question.

“Most of all I fear for elderly farmers. This isn't just money, this is blood, sweat and tears. The farm was their life's work, but as they have grown older, the farm has also become their pension – because that's what they were told to do. That all changed without warning.”

The NFU president claimed that he family farm tax is also economically wrong.

He added: “The claim made by Treasury that 73% of farmers will be unaffected by this tax has long been debunked.

"And it's not just the NFU that thinks the government's figures are wrong. All major opposition parties have said so. The agricultural valuers say so. The CBI says so. Even Labour's own tax advisers say so. All of the UK's major supermarkets have called for the government to pause and consult.

“We commend the principled Labour MPs who have had the decency to speak out.

“What the Chancellor has said, is that nobody has offered alternative solutions. So, last week, all the UK farming unions and several other organisations took a solution into Treasury. And what happened? They simply sent us away, with the sound of a slamming door ringing in our ears.2

“And we will not go away, we will not stop, we will not give in. We will fight the family farm tax until ministers do the right thing.

“Then we can move on. Because it's not like producing the nation's food has gotten any easier in the last 12 months. I have never seen such a crisis of confidence in our industry.”

In response to the NFU president’s, Department of Food, Environment and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) Secretary, Steve Reed, has confirmed the Prime Minister, Sir Kier Starmer, will host a British farming and food summit in the early summer of this year.