The Dozen Demands for Farming

1. £6 billion in the annual agricultural budget. We need £6 Billion in the annual UK agricultural budget to properly compensate farmers through a subsidy scheme for the costs they occur in managing their food producing land assets for the nation and to fully support the complete range of services required to deliver a fit for purpose sector, one made up of profitable family businesses worthy of being passed down the family line. A well funded annual budget will provide for all necessary environmental stewardship, for better encouragement and support for new entrants into the sector, and it will offer a full range of business support services to farmers wishing to change their business model and sell direct to the public or to add diversification enterprises on their farms. It will fund public education campaigns to promote buying British produce and it will reinforce the health and national food resilience benefits of eating local produce as well as funding social groups and wellbeing projects aimed at boosting morale and tackling the suicide crisis within our farming communities.

2. A low interest loan scheme for agriculture. Farming is a high input capital intensive business activity which requires significant loans to be taken out in order for it to operate. Fluctuating interest rates are a very real threat to profitability and they also create operating expenditure insecurity, with large farm buildings to maintain and the average cost of a 150hp tractor at around £150k and a combine harvester at around £600k, it is easy to see how even the average size 250 acre farm could service several hundred thousand pounds worth of debt annually. A low interest loan scheme for agriculture would address these concerns as it would create stability and known budgeting costs through the transfer of debt from a source prone to fluctuation to one with a guaranteed interest rate. By way of an example, just 6 billion placed into a sovereign wealth fund to capitalise this scheme each tax year would give every holding in the UK access to £60k per annum in loans at 0.5% interest. When one considers that £20 billion has been awarded for just the first stage of carbon dioxide sequestration at Drax power station or that in addition to our annual £12.75 billion foreign aid budget £9 billion has recently been given to African countries to fight climate change then the potential of this scheme if properly capitalised by a change in funding allocation priority is huge. The interest rate of 0.5% is suggested so that it covers the cost of administrating the scheme on a not for profit basis by HMRC, i.e. the day to day management of the financial services provided by government to farmers are cost neutral to the tax payer. The only commitment the tax payer needs to make is to agree to the shift in allocation of existing budgets.

3. Reintroduce minimum commodity prices together with a deficiency payments scheme and ensure sufficient import tariffs and equivalent quality regulations on imports and free trade deals to protect UK production. When global commodity prices plummet due to over supply from countries operating on far greater economies of scale our farmers should not be forced to sell at or below the cost of production, a protective minimum profit threshold
should constitute part of the deficiency payment scheme. Giving a regulatory free pass to imported produce also has to end, bread needs to carry a British wheat guarantee mark to inform consumers as to the origin of the grain used in its production.

4. Exempt all agricultural assets including farm machinery and diversification enterprises from Inheritance Tax.

5. The first principles of agricultural policy making must be:

i) achievement of maximum agricultural self sufficiency through the prioritisation of core food production.
ii) protection of the privately owned means of food production through the long term financial viability of family owned farms.
iii) recognition and renewal of the social contract that exists between a farmer and the nation. The first duty of a farmer is to feed the nation and to be a trustworthy custodian of the land for future generations, in return the nation must fully protect and support the farmer.

6. Strengthened rights for tenant farmers, including more flexible and longer term agreements to allow them to invest and grow their business with confidence.

7. Business rates and planning easements need to be put in place by local authorities for farm shops to help promote retail diversification and improve local food resilience in order to challenge the monopoly power of the supermarkets.

8. Ban loss leading sales tactics on all fresh produce, these distort consumer perceptions on the cost of food production.

9. Stop any further commercial solar installations on farm land, deploy on rooftop and brown field sites only, reduce onshore wind to 5% of total installed generating capacity.

10. Ban cloud seeding and the use of any other weather engineering technology in UK airspace.

11. Lock farmland out of the planning system for house building, housing development on land currently being used for agriculture must be prohibited.

12. Demand honest and fully informed food labelling for consumers, method of production, method of slaughter, use of gene editing, post harvest chemical treatments etc must all be declared along with existing nutritional, calorific and country of origin information.