To ask why you support the farmers, regarding inheritance tax?

[WheresFluffy]

Just that, really.
I'm interested to know why people support, or not, the farmers regarding the inheritance tax changes.

YABU - it's been done to death
YANBU - learning why people believe things is important.

I think we also need to make it much more difficult to sell of green field sites to developers. A lot of the fields around us are now housing estates (no doctors or schools or shops just houses)

I support an effort to stop IGT dodgers like Clarkson masquerading as farmers for a few years. But I'm not convinced that Labour's policy proposal achieves that without too much collateral damage.

Labour are callous and spiteful in their policy implementation when the targets are perceived to be the undeserving wealthy.

I see absolutely no reason why generational farming families that make a bare living off the land whilst helping to feed the nation should be forced to sell up to big institutional investors. That doesn't feel like it's going to result in the kind of rural Britain I want to see in the future.

I support them because basically no farmers, no food, plus I am not a communist who is short sighted and driven by envy and malice.

Spot on!

I wasn't arguing about levels of demand or price - just that if demand falls there's an easy solution for the problem of excess animals - less breeding - I'm sure that adjustment would happen pretty quickly, if it were needed.

That is the point of the question I am posing, and in answering to say that we will raise fewer domestic animals shows that those who advocate this have no understanding of how the agricultural landscape of Europe is maintained and what will happen if we lower the numbers of grazing animals. The landscape e.g. of the UK is almost entirely human-made, produced from the way we raise our crops and how many animals we raise for meat, milk, leather and wool (expect clothing prices to rise). Land used for grazing e.g. sheep and cattle is unsuitable as arable land - that's why it is used for producing meat and milk. If that land is no longer needed for raising meat and milk then it will not be used to raise crops, but become fallow. Not everyone is happy at the use of agricultural land for solar panels when the UK produces only 50% of its food, either.
The landscape will also change - mostly to scrub unless it is carefully managed, which, since we will be more reliant on imports, we may not have the surplus money to do.
Briefly, to change one aspect of agriculture - lowering the number of domestic animals - has a knock-on effect on landscape and the economy generally, and this is not taken into account by those who advocate this. Besides, I don't want to eat less meat, milk, cheese, butter etc., and I doubt the majority of the population want this either.

What makes you think demand for e.g. lamb will fall? And what of the problems of degrading the landscape, which is produced in Europe through animal husbandry? Scrub is not that attractive - and the habitats of many animals will be destroyed.

I am an ex farmer who now works in the farming industry and I do support farmers.
There are many issues at play here.
In the large majority of cases the IHT limit will be £3m and few family farms fall into that category.
I think it is a good thing to try and stop people buying land for tax avoidance and, if this does happen average land prices will fall and fewer farms will be over the IHT limit.
But the bottom line is, I think, that in this country we are used to paying very little for our food as a percentage of income. Farmers earn so little because they are generally not paid a sensible price for their products.
I know that times are hard for many but if we could just get our heads around paying a little more for home produced / organic / pasture for life foods then the farmers would earn more and be more able to (literally) weather the storms.

But you do need to throw into the mix subsidy payments. The subsidy system does need addressed with emphasis put back on good land management alongside food production to keep food affordable.

Absolutely. That’s why I mentioned pasture for life. The subsidy system isn’t perfect and is dynamic but at least is now trying to address and reward good stewardship and land management.
I was farming when the IACS subsidy system was introduced which just paid by average which was totally unfair and gave no incentive whatsoever for improvement.

I don't think the people who say we should eat less meat and drink less milk have ever thought this one through - what happens to the redundant livestock?

I was responding to you! I was not predicting a decrease in demand you were talking about the effect of a decrease in demand. Keep up!😂

Farmers are business owners not wage earners.

That does beg the question of why. Any business that repeatedly ran at a loss would be bust in no time.

If as the claim always is, it costs us more to produce eg milk than they get. Why do it. Why sign up to an agreement to supply eg morrisons at 'x' price unless you know it will be profitable.

Dairy cow numbers have increased by roughly 500k in 20 years. All the while dairy farmers have cried about price. Could over production play a part. How much of the circa 1m acres required for these extra cows could be repurposed for arable.

Operating at a loss, I never said that?

I just pointed out that they are not employed they are business owners.

Well any business owner should be profitable enough to absorb the IHT at a lower rate than most.

Yup.

OK some land may be unsuitable for arable and only suitable for sheep. But by and large cattle, especially dairy, are grazed on land that could be repurposed for arable.

In reality in terms of produce, dairy is not a great use of land. More sustenance can be produced per acre through arable.

🤣 I don’t understand

Yes and without subsidies, grants and funds too, totally agree.

If agriculture was set up like any other business that would be fine

It isn't like any other industry but I'm not against there being changes so farmers have better control of their profit margins and being in a better negotiating position to achieve that. But they aren't and no one is doing anything about that who has any power to change anything. It doesn't mean to say they are all making a loss though, breaking even, small profit margins, just not enough for reinvestment or paying whacking great bills that is supposedly designed to stop another section of society avoiding tax.

But this IHT doesn't make this particular tax avoidance scheme unattractive to private investors so it just harms rural SMEs across the board and reduces food security.

Too much ire and ill will against farming and no where near enough against the very people who caused this to happen.

Always the way.

@MarkingBad What is the reason Farmers don't say I will only sell my produce at 'x' price? If it is because another Farmer will come along and undercut him, then that still makes the farming community responsible.

This

Farmers can't set their own prices because the access to market is very restricted. The vast majority of farmers sell to a miniscule group of very large businesses through a middle man group. So the retailers set the price they will buy for not the producer, there is very little negotiating power for individual businesses.

Then when it gets to harvest those buyers know full well that the farmer has a perishable product so some more negotiations can go on because the shelf life of fresh food is very low.

In dairy there is usually only a couple of dairy companies that will buy the milk so again, stifled on access to a market. During covid and still some now found that as they were closer to higher populated areas and urban centres they could put in milk vending machine or sell through a hut with a good fridge and sell at the farm gate, some are still doing that partly because there is a demand in their area and partly to spread the risk of having all your eggs in one market basket. Doesn't work everywhere though, it works better where more potential customers live.

Better access to alternative markets and the ability to process food on farm could improve things for a lot of SMEs who don't have the space for appropriate storage

Genuine farmers yes, land grabbing tax dodgers (Jeremy Clarkson et al) absolutely not. Rich people having financial advisors caused this.

Apart from throwing out the baby with the bathwater, looking at one example of this apparently filthy bathwater so to speak, James Dyson, it is hard to understand the bitterness shown over possibly missing out on yet more if his money - the part remaining to him after all the massive amounts of tax he will already have paid during his lifetime.

Sir James Dyson and family, whose Dyson campus is located in Malmesbury, came in at number six on the national publication’s list of the top 100 taxpayers in the country for 2024.
Over the last year, the 76-year-old contributed a whopping £156 million to HM Treasury.
This was up from £93 million the previous year, when he came in at 12th on an annual list that is now in its sixth year.

https://www.salisburyjournal.co.uk/news/24081603.sunday-times-tax-list-2024-james-dyson-one-highest-taxpayers/

Then he has 3,500 employees who will be paying U.K. tax, and his company will be paying more tax for them.

His inventive talent was a gift to the country.

Where is this bitter sense of being somehow cheated by Dyson coming from?

He could just leave, or shut-down and leave us to it.

But they can sell the farm can’t they? The farms must be worth a load of money.