Farmers from across the UK will gather in central London later this month for a rally against the government’s budget, which they claim will have a devastating impact on their livelihoods.
The event has been organised by the NFU and will take place at the Church House conference centre in Westminster, on Tuesday November 19.
The union have been clear than the changes to agricultural property relief (APR) and business property relief (BPR) will seriously impact the future of family farms.
Farming across the UK is facing a vast array of challenges currently given the ever-changing weather, skyrocketing overheads and tightened margins, and with this latest development farmers are now being pushed to ‘breaking point’.
NFU members | NFU President Tom Bradshaw (@ProagriLtd) shares his frustration following the changes to APR and BPR announced in the Budget which could severely impact British farmers and growers, and updates on NFU mass lobby.
— National Farmers' Union (@NFUtweets) November 1, 2024
📷NFU members keep an eye on your inbox for details… pic.twitter.com/CuCOkDXE5K
Tom Bradshaw, the NFU's president, said the proposals to change APR and BPR needed to be 'overturned, and fast'.
Mr Bradshaw said: “Farmers have been left reeling from the changes announced in the budget which demonstrate a fundamental lack of understanding of how the British farming sector is shaped and managed.
“Farmers are rightly angry and concerned about their future and the future of their family farms, having been reassured by minsters in the lead up to the budget that APR and BPR changes were not on the table."
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The NFU explained that the headline figures indicating only one in four British farms will be affected by this tax change is ‘misleading’.
They stated that 'very few' working farms would come under the £1m threshold, but significant numbers of smallholdings and houses with grazing ground would.
“The government does not understand that family farms are not only small farms, and that just because a farm is an asset, it doesn’t mean those who work it are wealthy," Mr Bradshaw said.
"Every penny the chancellor saves from this will come directly from the next generation having to break up their family farm. It simply mustn’t happen."
The chancellor also announced that the agriculture budget will remain at the same level it has been since 2014, despite repeated calls for a substantial raise in line with inflation.
Mr Bradshaw said that at the London rally, British farmers will ask their MPs to 'look them in the eye and tell them whether they support this'.
He said: “MPs need to understand the consequences of these actions which is why we are mobilising our members for a mass lobby in the coming weeks.
“There’s still time for the government to accept they’ve got this wrong, and my message to ministers is that they should do the right thing and reverse this awful family farm tax.”
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