Autumn Budget 2024: The Extinction of the Small Farmer
Today's Budget threatens many small family farms with extinction. Its policy must be reversed.
(See footnote 1 for a helpful clarification that came out this morning 31st October)
Small farmers are the backbone of Britain. They ceaselessly labour away in the fields and valleys to provide our daily bread. Come rain or shine, they are out in their fields doing their upmost to ensure our shelves are stocked, and all in a way which cares for the land, soil and livestock they have been entrusted with.
A growing number of our small farmers also have an eye firmly focused upon the habitats and wild creatures that share their fields and hedges. They delight to hear the first cuckoo of the year, to see hedgerows teeming with butterflies and songbirds, and to smell the wildflowers thriving in the meadows and on the strips they leave for nature. Thus, they farm with skill and wisdom not only to gain a good harvest, but also to provide a home for the creatures great and small who call their land home. It is not an easy task by any stretch of the imagination — to balance the needs of wildlife and productivity — especially when conserving wildlife is a costly business which often incurs significant financial losses. But many do so regardless, for they know that the intrinsic value of what they are stewards of is valuable beyond measure.
Small farmers are the custodian of much of what makes Britain special. We owe them an immense debt of gratitude.
A great part of what makes a small farm special is the family continuity. The small farmer currently stewarding his or her farm grew up on this very same land. They climbed the lone oak tree standing in the field as a child. They helped at harvest time for pocket money. They befriended the sheepdogs and learnt the whistles and commands to orchestrate the “Gather”. And they watched the birds and butterflies in the fields they know by name. And so did their forefathers.
Many small farms have been in the family for generations upon generations. What makes this familial dynamic so valuable and so special is that each successive generation inherits not only the land they love and know intimately, but also the accumulated wisdom on how to care rightly for this unique and particular land. They are the ones best placed manage it well; for deep knowledge and strong affection are absolutely essential for good and proper care. Such wisdom is thus invaluable. And considering just how much land is under the care of small farmers across Britain, this generational land-wisdom is vital if our “green and pleasant land” is to remain green, pleasant, and productive.
Our food security, our rural beauty, and our farmland biodiversity all depend on this transfer of wisdom, care, and love. Small Family farms need to stay within the family. It is a tragedy when they don’t.
This makes the announcement today from the Chancellor, that farms worth more than £1m will no longer qualify for exemption from inheritance tax, an existential threat to our countryside1. £1 million may sound like a lot of money, but for small farmers whose house is often worth more than £1 million, let alone all the land they own, this threshold threatens to decimate them. It is not as if these farmers are millionaires; theoretically they “may be”, but practically they are far from rich. They labour for a pittance, many barely scraping the minimum wage and some making a loss. Their “great wealth” is tied up in the land they own and steward — a land that they have been entrusted with and love, a land which bears the family name — a land which would almost be sacrilegious to sell. However, following today’s announcement they may be forced to do just that.
The majority of farmers in the future, including a vast proportion of our small family farmers, will be financially compelled to sell significant parts of their land to pay the extortionate inheritance tax bills. Some will be forced to sell their farms completely, for there is no feasible way many will be able to foot this bill through their yearly earnings or savings. As I have already mentioned, these small farmers already earn a pittance from their good hard labour. Government support has been cut recently and supermarkets with their monopoly control continue to squeeze down the prices they pay farmers with tectonic force. Many farmers make a loss or barely scrape the minimum wage when all their hours of work are accounted for. No wonder farm suicides are already disproportionally high. This grossly short-sighted announcement has just poured petrol on the mental health fire.
This announcement from the Chancellor will thus precipitate a tragedy of immense proportions. In order to help plug the deficit and raise a few billions of pounds, the Chancellor is threatening to confine many small family farms to extinction. Neighbouring big farms, land investors, and real estate developers will be waiting in the wings like vultures to pluck off the land that young farmers inheriting the land from their dead parents’ will be forced to sell. Rather than increasing our wealth as a society by enhancing our tax revenue, this policy threatens to impoverish us — culturally, socially, ecologically, and nutritionally. Gone will be the rich and deep familial ties to the land, gone will be the love, the wisdom, the care. Gone will be those best placed to care for and steward our rural lands All extinguished by a mere pronouncement from the despatch box.
Small farmers will be decimated by this budget. It is a tragedy of immense proportions. It must be reversed.
*this post was written very quickly in response to an announcement today. Thus its quality may not be up to my usual standard. I hope you will understand.
Miles King published a helpful thread this morning (31st October) on Twitter suggesting that due to other tax breaks and allowances, it may actually be possible for a farm up to £2m (and possibly even £3m “with succession planning”) to avoid having to pay inheritance tax. If this is correct this is indeed good news and would significantly change the outlook for the smallest of farmers — but a significant proportion of small family farmers will still suffer considerably as their holdings are worth £2m+. The message coming from farming organisations and campaign groups appears to support the sentiment that this budget presents an existential threat to small farms: https://www.farmersguide.co.uk/business/politics/chancellor-announces-hammer-blow-reforms-to-agricultural-property-relief/
Although, recent comments from former Labour Special Advisor John McTernan, that “we don’t need small farmers” perhaps shows something more sinister is at play.
Unfortunately, this is exactly what has happened here in America. The small family farms are for the most part, gone. It’s only in the most rural and remote parts of our country that these farms still hang on by a thread. Agri-businesses have taken over vast tracts of land that used to be privately owned and farmed by concerned farmers. And it’s been going on here since the 1970’s. The worse places to see chewed up by ‘progress’ are the outlying areas around major urban cities. I’ve watched the farm land around Portland, Oregon systematically being destroyed by developers. Housing, industrial development and urban sprawl of shopping centers are all consuming what were rich farms producing products that only the Pacific Northwest can grow such as all manner of cane berries. I’ve lived in this area since 1987 and it hurts to see more and more land that used to be ‘you pick fields and orchards’ gone. And subsequently, the native wildlife and plants…
My mums family are farmers, and my brother worked for a sheep farmer in Derbyshire as a teenager. I don’t really let myself care about UK politics anymore, but this announcement hurt. So few people understand how hard farmers work, how much they have already survived over the last 30 years, and how little gratitude they receive. Forcing farmers to pay tax on their land is so unjust, it is like saying all businesses will be subject to inheritance tax. Mostly I just feel sad though, because so many of our small family farms have already been destroyed and taken over by big agriculture, and this announcement threatens to pull the rug from under those that have survived thus far.