Following the announcement of the government’s ‘New Deal for Farmers’, which sets out the state’s long-term vision for British agriculture, the NFU has warned that many of these reforms will come too late for farming businesses that are struggling to see beyond the end of 2025.
Speaking at the Oxford Farming Conference this week, Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA), Steve Reed, outlined the three cornerstones of the government’s vision – food production, business resilience and nature restoration.
Reed also announced the government’s 25-year farming roadmap, which will form the blueprint of how Defra plans to achieve these ambitions.
However, NFU president, Tom Bradshaw said that while there were positives within the announcements, there had been a failure to recognise that the industry is in a “cash flow crisis, with the lowest farmer and grower confidence ever recorded”.
“Many are worried about making it to the end of 2025, never mind what happens 25 years down the line,” he added.
Bradshaw listed the “devastating inheritance tax changes”, along with hikes to employers’ national insurance, “crippling cuts” to direct payments and delays to environmental schemes as existing pressure points that mean “many businesses won’t survive to benefit from the new deal”.
New deal for farmers
The Defra secretary announced a series of reforms, including:
- Reiterating Labour’s 50% public procurement manifesto promise, with the introduction of monitoring where public sector food comes from;
- A consultation on national planning reforms to make it easier to build farm buildings, barns and other infrastructure, due to launch in Spring;
- The launch of the ADOPT (Accelerating Development of Practices and Technologies) fund in Spring as part of the Farming Innovation Programme;
- Working with Ofgem to help free up capacity for electricity generation in rural areas.
The Defra secretary also reiterated the government’s commitment to “uphold and protect our high environmental and animal welfare standards in future trade deals”.
In response, the NFU president said:
“It’s great that government thinks farming and growing businesses should be more profitable and sustainable in the long-term.
“It’s also good to hear the government say the primary role of farmers and growers is to produce food, but how is it going to ensure food production is profitable when thousands of farmers and growers are questioning whether they’ll still be in the industry in the next year?
“The agricultural transition, which began with the previous government’s Health and Harmony consultation in 2018, assumed that the loss of direct payments would be offset by farmers getting a proper financial return from environmental schemes, significant improvements in productivity, and increased returns from fairer functioning markets.
“This has not happened.”
The NFU president said the government must now “face up to the reality of the fierce policy headwinds and challenging market conditions the industry is facing” and act to secure the future of British farming.
He reiterated the NFU’s calls to pause and consult on the prospective changes to the farm family tax as a matter of urgency and to review delays and challenges with agri-environmental schemes.
“To have a genuine reset moment with farmers and growers after the inflationary budget, all of these issues need to be addressed.
“Only then can the government’s long-term vision be achievable. As we go through the detail of today’s announcements, we will continue to engage with Defra and stand up for the voice of British farming,” he said.
