To support UK Farmers

[TheHateIsNotGood]

And due to KS's inability to face them in Wales today they are now thinking of going on strike. Because the govt are being too stubborn to reconsider how they apply IHT on working family farms. By all means close the loophole that allows the 'landed gentry' to take advantage of the agricultural exception but not with so blunt an instrument.

I was hoping to add a post to an existing thread but there isn't one despite it being headline news today.

I support them, we need farms and food grown here

Oh dear. Politics of envy

Same op.

The value of the land is in the food it can grow NOT what it could be sold for. This is a very serious mistake by Labour

It isn't easy to drive a Honda Jazz around agricultural land. Tractors and farm machinery cost an absolute fortune and need a lot of maintenance.

If people cared about farming, why would they have voted for Brexit?

There is no consistency... just tribalism in British politics.

@Papyrophile states the case I think. The price of once cheap agricultural land has sky-rocketed the past 20 years. It takes a die-hard dc to take on the daily work and toil for little profit and no appreciation in wider society.

The current course steered will lead to the break-up of smaller farms when already often the farmer and family need to work 'off farm' to earn enough to pay their household bills. A small farm will get even smaller and less viable if it needs to sell a few acres (probably for development) to pay the IHT.

Why shouldn't they pay tax like everyone else?

Because it threatens food production

How would it even do that?

Presumably if family farms have to sell off their land to pay tax, it will be bought up by a combination of agribusinesses, actual 'landed gentry' and for housing instead of using brown/grey field sites.

I agree they should pay tax when they sell their land, but they shouldn't have to sell land to pay tax.

All the farmers I know voted for Brexit and were passionate about it. At the time I couldn’t help thinking “turkeys voting for Christmas”…

I don't think farming or food production crossed anyone's mind tbh.
I wonder if any of the current government have ever visited a farm?
That first harvest after Brexit left so much food rotting in the fields because there was nobody to pick and pack. I can't imagine how it must have felt to see all your hard work wasted.

I have no farming background and I’m concerned about this, purely from a selfish point of view as I like to eat and U.K. organic produce where possible. People really need to educate themselves on the subject, this has the potential to directly affect the food on your plate, so affects everyone. Don’t care about food production then how about more farming land being sold to developers ( to pay the tax) and being developed, plenty of MN’s seem to complain about that.

We really aren’t.

Well the Farmers said the price of Brexit was a price worth paying and said they knew what they voted for. Yesterday the Bank of England Governor said Brexit was dragging down th economy. I’m afraid the farmers will have to contribute towards paying it.

Not niche at all. Given that the food we all eat comes from...farms

If farming is indeed as laborious and unprofitable as we’re told, you’d expect that farmers would be happy for their children to inherit then sell the farm. I wouldn’t want to saddle my offspring with the prospect of working all day from the early hours of the morning, 365 days a year for little return.

Yes and possibly housing estates.

Isn't it better to keep land to avoid flooding

I'm part of a farming family, 4th generation.

Three of my family members work full time on the farm. The farm comprises two houses where said family members live, multiple sheds and outbuildings and about 150 acres. It's not in an expensive area but because of property and buildings is valued at approximately £2million.

The houses are landlocked by the farm so couldn't be sold as normal properties.

Three people working full time plus some contractors - the farm made a profit of £55k last year.

When the older generation who own it pass on and want to pass it to the next generation they will have to sell 20% of the land to give the money to the government. It then absolutely won't be a viable financial prospect, and will likely go under.

This is why this is a problem for farmers. Honestly most of them are really really not rich people and scrape a living working very hard.

Why do you think it’s sky rocketed? Could it be because of people buying it to avoid IHT?
I have sympathy for a change directly affecting small farms, but they have 10 years to pay anything owed. Maybe the price of farm land will fall back to where it should be as a result of this, and a) their farms will be worth less (on paper) so fall out of IHT and b) they may be able to buy more land to increase income.

Your ignorance is breathtaking !

Clueless.

I also worry about the effect on the climate with all the food we have to bring in from far flung places.

This is so bad.