Tag: sustainable-agriculture

Unintended Consequences

There’s a list that must exist somewhere in the bowels of Government which describes the dumbest things that have ever been done. The law of unintended consequences. Where an aim may have been honest, but the reality was a deep dive in embarrassment and failure.

If this list doesn’t exist it dam well should. It’s a sort of lessons learned for civil servants, politicians and think tanks. Don’t propose anything X because the last time someone did that they crashed and burned. Or more subtly it was years later that people cursed the day that such a dumb idea was advanced.

I’m not going to argue against market forces. How could I. From an early age markets were part of my life. That’s local agricultural markets. My father bought and sold livestock. The bread and butter of livestock farming is to buy at one price, add value and then, hopefully, sell at a better price. Markets rise and fall in ways that are often mystical.

The UK imports approximately 46% of the food it consumes. Even that figure is 5 years old. I suspect that food imports have increased in the meantime. That’s in a country that is richly blessed with quality agricultural land. Fine, we (UK) are none too good at growing olives or avocados but the range of produce that it is possible to grow is huge.

Grassland is our greatest asset. Every time I flew back from an overseas trip, just looking down from the aeroplane remined me just how the UK is a carpet of green. Field systems that have ancient origins still dominate the landscape.

Livestock farming has changed radically since my father’s time. Fortunately, we have avoided, in most cases, the levels of intensification and factory methods that others have adopted. Hormone injected beef comes from cattle that live sad lives. People know this and have hands down rejected industrial farming to that level of intensity.

Domestic food production has changed because of Brexit and not for the better. One threat to domestic food production has been some of the ridiculous trade deals that have been struck by this Government and its predecessors. Making it harder for exporters and easier for importers.

Political policy towards the countryside has rightfully taken up the need to restore biodiversity and preserve some of our most precious landscapes. Trouble is that at the same time, little or no thought has been given to the need to support domestic food production. It’s like a policy desert. It’s one thing to talk about food security. It’s another to do anything about it.

With the Labour Government threatening to take large amounts of capital out of UK farming with their inheritance tax plans, they will be making family farming a thing of the past. It’s one of the dumbest things that have ever been done.

There’s general agreement that we shouldn’t encourage wealthy people to use land as a repository for their wealth. However, tax advisors have been telling them to do that for decades. Buy land and pay less tax. Reversing that long standing trend needs an intelligent policy not a crude sledgehammer to crack a nut. Even if it’s impossible to ween Labour politicians off their ideas on inheritance tax, there ought to be a way of doing it without penalising the innocent. Letting off those non-farming interests that politicians were aiming at originally. Dogma makes bad policy. It’s time to reemphasise the place family farming has in food production.

UK Farmers’ Unrest: Budget Shock and Political Implications

Yesterday, central London was full of British farmers. Far more than was anticipated. It’s a countryside revolt. Or at least the seed corn of unrest. It needs to be addressed quickly.

The UK Government Budget sprung an unexpected shock on farmers. Newly elected, everyone expected them to try to correct the spending mess left by their predecessors. However, few expected them to make-up last minute figures to do something they said they wouldn’t do.

Lots of family farmers could be singing the classic Beatles song “Yesterday”. Troubles seemed so far away before the general election. Now, they seem here to stay.

Like androids, and the Tories before them, Labour Members of Parliament (MPs) are trotting out lines prepared for them by their masters. The political excuse trotted out robotically is that the theoretical threshold for taxation is £3 million and not £1 million as everyone is saying. Therefore, they say, fewer farm businesses will be impacted by their new death tax.

When something goes wrong in Government one of the best strategies is to address the facts immediately, apologies for any error, take the temporary hit and move on quickly. Stonewalling and wibbling is an extremely poor approach.

For a start, many farmers will not be able to take-up the tax reliefs Labour MPs are talking about. Farming is a hazardous profession. Sadly, unexpected deaths are not unusual. If such an event occurs this could then result in compounded tragedy, that is the death of a family business too.

Farmers are pointing out that significantly wealthy people will still use land purchase to avoid tax. They will have complex and detailed tax planning services at their fingertips.

Agricultural land values have increased dramatically in recent decades. Yes, there is an issue to be addressed with respect to land value. Housing development land is an astronomical price. It’s one of the drivers that is making house prices unaffordable for many people.

Labour needs to recognise that it’s not food producers who are driving these negative phenomena. It’s not small and medium sized family farms who are the problem makers.

Not only is this new inheritance tax very poor politics by Labour, but it’s also not going to crack the problem that they might wisely wish to crack. I’d say, think again. At least consult.