Do you need your parent/s to die before April 2026? *MNHQ adding content warning mentions suicide*

[Spatulation]

Absolutely reeling that we're losing the farm that my grandfather bought, my father expanded and my son hoped to takeover.

The budget today means that we'll owe £1000000 in tax and we won't be able to get a mortgage as that's 5 times our annual income and over 35000 times bigger than last year's profit.

We own soil. That's it.

Agriculture has the highest suicide rate in any profession - sadly I can see it hitting an all time high in the next 18 months. My father (83) is already talking about it.

That’s what I was thinking in terms of the size of the farm. That would be much much bigger that the average farm, even allowing for the assumption it’s very good quality farmland.

I’’m sure the NFU will be working on this very quickly, including looking at the mental health aspect which is always a worry in the farming community.

Totally disagree the climate change activists are labour voters most seem to be rich kids with inherited money and no need to work pretty sure they vote green!
farming (if you are not just a gentleman farmer and there are plenty of them ) is a tough life but many people have tough lives.
I’m sure good financial advisor will help plenty of wealthy farmers around where I live , and get help for your dad from GP but we are all paying for the mess left behind through the poor economic decisions of years of Tory policies.

Can they gift it to you and live another 7 years?

Hi OP, so sorry to hear how difficult this is for you and your family. I just wanted to send you a link you might find helpful. RABI offer free counselling for the farming community, their counsellors are trained and informed on the difficulties you and your family face.

https://rabi.org.uk/how-we-can-help/in-person-counselling/

It’s going to devastate food production and destroy peoples livelihood. More dependence on large corporations. Madness

On the face of it, it looks tough for farmers and I empathise.

I think, however, it is very early days here and has only just been announced. While lots of detail was covered in the speech yesterday, inevitably not all the finer details could be covered. I'd wait until the real facts are known about how this will be implemented and then take financial advice on how best to mitigate. It's still possible this is not the disaster for many farming families that the headline details make it seem.

If you read the op's posts it's pretty clear from her tone she's writing from a place of incredible distress and concern for her father who is having suicidal thoughts whilst working in a industry with one of the highest suicide rates.

It amazes me that in ww2 it became apparent that as a nation we were unable to produce enough food to feed even 1/3 of the population. Yet all these years later we still have done nothing to remedy this. We treat our famers pretty poorly. I live semi-rurally and every farmer I know would love their kids to follow them in the family business but has advised them not to if they want any quality of life. The only farms that are doing well near me are the ones that do everything they can to get visitors in through the doors - be it pick your own/fun farms/school visits etc.

No that’s not how it works. When OP’s dad dies those inheriting the farm will be expected to pay a £1 million tax bill. As farms are asset rich but cash poor that £1 million will have to come from selling off land which will mean the farm that is left will have a lower yield and will not be as productive as before. If the farm was only just about breaking even before selling off a huge chunk of land (as is the case for a large % of farms) then selling said land will turn it into a loss making business and therefore unviable.

The option then would be to sell up entirely and cash in the value. The farm would be either sold for development (losing valuable much needed growing land) or sold off to a large corporation with no interest in the local community, maintaining biodiversity etc. Other small farmers won’t be interested as what is the point in buying a loss making business?

Surely he should sign it over now?
Then if he lives 7 years it's fine but with every year he does live the amount payable reduces.

Tbh, I am surprised this hasn't already been done.
Plenty of people do this with far less to pass on.

Does this apply to big country houses/estates with farm land too? Does anyone know?

To me your OP is extremely confusing, I dont understand what you are talking about. You sound stressed.

Those in urban areas just don't understand rural affairs.

As many have displayed here there is an assumption that farmers are rich people, they are not.

This policy from Labour is downright disgusting, and it appeals to typical urban Labour voters who think farmers are wealthy. The aim is that no family business ever survives like funeral directors, which is convenient when Labour Co-Op have a funeral business.

You don't understand how family farms work

I am so sorry op, and completely understand. Some of our land is contract farmed, our farmer looks after 6 other farms in our area, so what's to become of him? We Farm 800 acres, and the value of the farm itself is around the same as yours, the available funds to live on don't even meet minimum wage level. We are a 4th generation farm, it's absolutely awful to think that this is it.

Not a farmer at all here but recently spent some time talking to a few about the situation. From what I learnt I think there's a wide consensus amongst the farming trade that Clarkson has done a huge amount to highlight the issues that they face. Yes, he's no angel and until he started his farm I had no time for him but through his show he's done more to educate us all about the enormous hard work required for such small returns than anyone else out there. He often talks about how it would not be viable for him if he didn't have his TV work so that means it's nigh on impossible to turn much profit for everyone else. To then be hit with a tax bill of this propertions is devastating for such farms. And all for trying to feed the nation whilst being shat upon by supermarkets.

OP I really feel for you on this. I'm so sorry that so many ignorant, envious and bitter people have appeared on this thread. I hope they take some time to learn more about how our food is produced and why this will impact negatively on them too in the long run.

To those people bashing the OP maybe try and watch Clarksons Farm. Once you get beyond his twattery you will see what's at stake here. You might even enjoy it. 😉

I grew up in a farming community and my brother’s a tenanted farmer so I get that way of life but the fragile mental health of farmers, and the romantic view of farming that facilitates this that you can see throughout this thread, really needs addressing.

Poor mental health isn’t a badge of honour if it’s caused by a noble job. It’s that attitude, and the silence, that means farmers are 3.5x more likely to kill themselves than the general population.

If your father is seriously considering suicide in response to a tax that’s yet to be applied, please seek professional support for him urgently because he’s not well. Call the Samaritans, go to your GP, do something - it might be a way of life but it’s not worth dying for.

She’s just spoke a little on this on LBC. You should listen.

I am a business owner and don’t know much about the business side of farming but why can’t farms be set up as limited companies rather than personal wealth? There needs to be proper succession planning in farming with those who will take over being brought in as directors before the death of the oldest generation.
I have sympathy for the emotions in the op but I cannot believe there isn’t a way to set the business up to survive the death of the “main” farmer.

It’s absolutely outrageous, threaten food security and ultimately lead to the loss of agriculture as we know it in this country. It will just be mega farming left.

You’ll be okay OP, call your land agent and talk through your options. It may be that getting the farm into a Trust is your best option.

For those saying “can’t he just sign it over” he would then have to either move out of the farm or pay his children market rate rent to stay. You can’t just sign it over and then carry on as before. And as OP has said, her father is 83 so the “seven year rule” may sadly not apply.

The option then would be to sell up entirely and cash in the value. The farm would be either sold for development (losing valuable much needed growing land) or sold off to a large corporation with no interest in the local community, maintaining biodiversity etc

Farming has hardly given us Biodiversity has it? its the worst its ever been and the worst in Europe..... pesticides, slurry ran off, nitrates in rivers, soil erosion....

Money is what drives UK farmers, who we give almost £2 billion per year in subsidy in order to help destroy the countryside.

266,000 acres of UK arable land is used to grow plants for biofuels.... very good for food security..not.

Thank you for this.

We are in the middle of a Reset. Destroying small/family farms is deliberate. Its part of a larger plan to wipe out independent producers and transfer their wealth upwards. Its happening on a global scale. Its basically asset stripping. Labour are just implementing the plans of the banking/corporate sector. The biggest farm landowner in the US is Bill Gates because he has bought up all the land sold by farmers going bust. Similar thing happening with private landlords being pushed out of the market and forced to sell. Corporate landlords are buying up property everywhere. Its the consolidation of power and wealth into fewer and fewer hands.
Remember the 8 Predictions for 2030 WEF video - one of the "predictions" aka Plans is 'you will own nothing and be happy' (they've stripped your assets) and another is "you wont be eating meat anymore' - it will become so expensive we wont be able to afford it. They want us eating synthetic "meat" hence the vegan push over the last few years. Add to this the CBDC and bingo... total control of all human activity.

With an increasingly unstable world and food prices that rocket every time there's a conflict somewhere it is shortsighted to not want to encourage sustainability, homegrown products and a UK farming industry that could feed the population. Minette Batters has been great on this - warned successive governments that farming should be seen as part of our national infrastructure and protected. This just makes farming less attractive and unstable - and so us too as a nation.

If you own a large farm, surely the government's idea is you sell a bit to carbon offset and/or solar to raise the funds, then continue to farm the rest?
I'm sure, given the government's incentives to solar and carbon offset the large pension funds will be scrabbling to amass enough land, which, in turn will take out of food productivity, and again in turn result in more carbon costing food imports.
Nuts, totally nuts, what will happen when Russia and Iran gang up with China and decide to strike against the West?

I think farmers need to stage a protest (like they did in France) where they bring all the tractors to London and grind the city to a halt, that may focus some minds.