UK Farmers

[SunQueen24]

Can someone please explain to me what today is all about?

Completely genuine question, who would you like to own farmland? People who know how to farm it sensitively and sustainably, or huge city businesses. If big estates have to sell land it isn't going to be bought up by small farms.

Agriculture is already moving away from the family farm. Corporations like Tesco are looking to own the entire supply chain and as such already own and manage a lot of agriculture. This will continue as the chase for ever more efficiency continues.

Local Authority owned farms seems sensible, atleast they stay as farmland but local authority tenants have security of tenure and the ability to pass the farm to their children if they wish to continue farming it.

And this is incredibly scary, that supermarkets can control absolutely everything about our food supply.

The LA sold all their farms off round here in i think, the 90s. There was no security there. Where would the LA get the money to buy the land?

I think it would be good for the country to have a conversation about that in the future. For now, it's enough that we start looking critically at just how land is owned and how wealth and power is intertwined with it. Most people likely aren't aware, or if they are, don't know the details. These guys in London today could potentially be useful in drawing a bit of public attention to it.

Ah interesting- so she should have done median rather than mean average?

I know of one local authority who gave a patch of land to Tesco, simply because they thought it was unsightly and they didn’t want the bother of looking after it. The stupid is beyond belief. And yes the thought of supermarkets owning farms is extremely worrying.

You said who would you like to own land so it was a hypothetical response to a hypothetical question. Any tenants on a long lease retained their tenancy.

I live in a rural area. I have a small holding that I’m currently having to pay 40% inheritance tax on because it’s not a working farm. I’m going to have to sell off some of it. It’s value is nowhere near a million. I’m on minimum wage, part time, but I’m having to find the money.
A lot of local farmers I know seem to have new cars and very few years, new tractors. They’ve lived in houses on the family’s farm, so they’ve never had to pay rent or a mortgage. They’ve bought up local land (from people like me) as it’s come up for sale. They’ve created holiday lett of old stone barns when they’ve built bigger modern barns. Their wives haven’t had to work (but do a bit on tbe farm). The kids have had ponies etc. So I’m can’t feel that sorry for them having to pay a bit of tax. Any other family business passed onto the children is subject to IHT.. If we change anything, we shouldn’t be reversing this, we should be looking at the supermarkets buying things at ridiculously cheap prices. And we should make it so that IHT can’t be avoided by signing property over to children years before. We all have to pay more if we want the things we expect from councils/governments

It’s the expense of looking after it rather than the sentiment.

Small family farms are struggling where we live anyway and most land is being hoovered up by mega dairy when they break them up. The very small farms do tend to be better for wildlife but the larger ones tend to mine the land rather than take care of it. I have to say most farmers I know are pretty wealthy by lost peoples standards lots of vehicles for all the family, houses for kids etc but I know that’s not everyone. It’s quite split I think.
However anyone supporting the No Famrers No Food needs to do their homework to see who is behind this because it’s absolutely not what you expect.

@SunQueen24 The local authority in question gave the land away. For free. Public property given to a Massive Corporation with no benefit whatsoever back to the public purse.

And if you don't earn £10k a year, or your earnings are only £30k a year? Reducing you to believe minimum wage because you work 7 days a week, 16 hours a day?

@Roryno

They’ve lived in houses on the family’s farm, so they’ve never had to pay rent or a mortgage. They’ve bought up local land (from people like me) as it’s come up for sale. They’ve created holiday lett of old stone barns when they’ve built bigger modern barns. Their wives haven’t had to work (but do a bit on tbe farm). The kids have had ponies etc.

That’s exactly the sort of people on my newsfeed. They’re quite expressive about their wealth and will take any opportunity to remind you - I bumped into a SAHM in the supermarket and she told me she’d bought a new farm and was “so busy” with it. It was an unsolicited piece of info. She’s married with no expectation of working again and they’ve no mortgage to pay because there’s a cluster of houses passed down the generations on their land - theirs is their late Grandparents. Utterly confused as to how they can muster support from normal working folk - because I ride I know quite of lot of farmers in similar positions. I don’t dispute her husband works hard, he does, and they have a number of employees. But so does my DH and weren’t getting a tax break.

Because it’s Public Open Space they’ll have had to advertise (by law) my bet is it wasn’t worth anything to anyone and was a liability for them in terms of maintenance.

The local authorities who are all bankrupt, and couldn't run their cities, let alone the countryside? That will go well.

Bunch of hypocrites reform mps and farage speaking today so the farmers have forgotten how brexit has put in borders to them selling to Europe making it harder . So having a go at keir starmer but not the conservatives who facilitated changes that have affected farmers.
personally feel it’s because it’s labour as did they protest like this when the tories were in power that have hurt farming to.

Isn’t that what everyone saying about farmers too? Plus they let the land they don’t operate the farms themselves.

All it will mean is that more farmers are forced to sell their farms to investment firms (like in the US).

In the long term this will create a shift from farmers owning and running their own farms to tenant farmers running farms on a contract for investment firms.

Not owning the farm reduces the incentive to put in long term measures (tree planting, hedge repairs, drainage, new tractor etc etc) that will only see a return in the very long run. Instead tenant farmers will be incentivised to focus on generating the maximum money during the period of their tenancy (which still won't be that much) at the long term cost of the stewardship of the land.

If you live in a city then I can fully understand that tax revenues trump consideration of land stewardship but it's a very short sighted approach.

Sometimescalmperson So you might want to trade places with these "cheeky entitled Fuckers" then? I voted for this government and feel more disappointed by them each day. RR has lied about her time working for the Bank of England, stripped pensioners of their fuel Allowances ,now they are after the farmers! up at the crack 24/7 (Do they get holidays does anyone know) Hard physical labour for many .Jeremy Clarkson has gone with them .They were speaking to many today on the news ,Quietly coming to the Capital ,from Cornwall ,Bristol etc. Wonder how RR will fare when already expensive food is scarce ?

And somebody on the news was saying that it's practically impossible for folk to get into farming because of the price of land.Either abolish inheritance tax for everyone or applying to everyone. Including royals who are exempt.

No they don't. Succession tenancies no longer exist. Local authorities don't do agreements for longer than 20 years, and they are cash strapped so never do any improvements (or even repairs) on their farms. Most are having to sell farms to cover their social services costs.

Rr did not lie about what she did in the bank of England no was about what she did in the bank of Halifax afterwards so that’s not true plus also if these farmers are so hard up why the fuck are they listening to people like Nigel Farage that are on that same protest and the conservatives that have made it so much harder for the farmers because of putting tariffs when we betrayed between Europe because of brexit?
Plus there’s a lot of misinformation as the radio has said that a lot of people will not be having to pay inheritance tax but even if they did they could give the farm the seven-year rule.
When you talk about pensioners, remind yourself there’s a lot of rich pensioners in that

Oh what a silly and ignorant post.