More than 10 per cent of farmland in England is set to be diverted towards helping to achieve net zero and protecting wildlife by 2050, the Environment Secretary will reveal on Friday.
Swathes of the countryside are on course to be switched to solar farms, tree planting and improving habitats for birds, insects and fish.
The move is part of a consultation being launched by Steve Reed, the Environment Secretary, on how the competing priorities of food production, net zero and nature should be reconciled in England.
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs estimates that 9 per cent of farmland would need to be removed from food production by 2050 to meet green targets, The Telegraph understands. A further 5 per cent is expected to be mostly taken out of production owing to a decreased level of food output, and another 4 per cent will share space with trees.
Mr Reed will insist that his framework will not impose changes on landowners, but the figures are likely to reignite Labour’s row with farmers who expressed concerns that the strategy could lead to the Government telling them what they can grow and where.
The Government will say that the land use framework consultation, which was first promised under the Conservatives, will protect the most productive agricultural land.
In a speech at the Royal Geographic Society in Kensington, Mr Reed will say: “Using the most sophisticated land use data ever published, we will transform how we use our land to deliver on our Plan for Change. That means enabling the protection of prime agricultural land, restoring our natural world and driving economic growth.”
The Government has ambitious targets to increase woodland in England by 20 per cent, or about 265,000 hectares, by 2050, accounting for a third of the change in farm use. It has also set a target to build 1.5 million new homes, install hundreds of square miles of solar panels and onshore wind turbines, and protect 30 per cent of the land for nature.
The UK is committed to reaching net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, meaning as much carbon is removed from the atmosphere as is produced. Tree planting targets are expected to be a major contributor to this, as is the restoration of peatland.
Some 70 per cent of England is farmland, and a 9 per cent reduction would bring this down by 760,000 hectares.
Farming groups have warned of growing threats to food security, expressing concern over the implications in the Government’s analysis. “Whenever the state gets involved, its tendency is to only become ever more prescriptive,” said Victoria Vyvyan, the president of the Country Land and Business Association.
“Government must build safeguards into the policy to prevent mission creep, or else it is entirely possible that, in years to come, the man from the ministry will be telling farmers what they are and aren’t allowed to grow, plant and rear on their land.”
‘Brutal Budget has hurt farming’
Tom Bradshaw, president of the NFU, said it was “imperative this framework does not further restrict farmers’ ability to produce the nation’s food”.
“Over the past 18 months, the UK farming industry has taken a battering,” he said. “Volatile input costs, commodity prices on the floor in some sectors, a reduction in direct payments, one of the wettest periods in decades, and a brutal Budget delivered by this Government. All have left their mark and have put homegrown food production under serious pressure.”
The Government believes food production can be largely maintained at current levels by focusing on removing only the least productive land. About 20 per cent of England’s farmed land produces just 3 per cent of total calories, in areas where subsidies have historically accounted for 90 per cent of farm incomes.
Labour’s net zero goals will require £500bn investment
These areas are largely in uplands dominated by sheep farming, one of the most financially precarious sectors of the rural economy.
Government targets on restoring nature have already led to a push to reduce sheep farming on Dartmoor, and farmland has been bought up in several parts of the country by charities dedicated to rewilding projects.
Maps included with the consultation documents are expected to categorise the country based on suitability for tree planting and habitat restoration.
The plan will ultimately be used by local authorities and government departments to inform decisions on new investments and where development should be sited.
Mr Reed will add: “This framework will not tell people what to do. It is about working together to pool our knowledge and resources, to give local and national government, landowners, businesses, farmers and nature groups the data and tools they need to take informed actions that are best for them, best for the land, and best for the country.”
A government spokesman said: “The land use framework will not tell anyone what to do with their land.
“Instead, it will be the most sophisticated data ever published on land use options so farmers and landowners can make better decisions for themselves on how to get the most out of their land and boost their profits.”
Investment required by 2050
Grid £200bn
Offshore wind £115bn
Nuclear £150bn
Carbon capture/storage £70bn
Aurora Energy Research
Readers on axing farmland for net zero
Robert Canham
“The Government’s plan to reduce farmland for food production and make us dependent on imported food is a plan hatched by enemies of this country.”
Richard M.
“To see the UK even consider intentionally eliminating 10pc of their farmland is stunning. I hope it can somehow be stopped.”
Peter Hughes
“We need food security and energy security in this country. We need to support and invest in all our farmers to increase food production right now.”
David Forcey
“Not only will this madness be an existential threat to our food production, it will also ruin the look of our beautiful countryside.”
Malc Mayfield
“The Government should be put on trial for treason. This is sabotage, pure and simple.”
Join the conversation
Life for the medieval peasant was certainly no picnic. His life was shadowed by fear of famine, disease and bursts of warfare. His diet and personal hygiene left much to be desired.
But despite his reputation as a miserable wretch, you might envy him one thing: his vacations.
Ploughing and harvesting were backbreaking toil, but the peasant enjoyed anywhere from eight weeks to half the year off.
The Church, mindful of how to keep a population from rebelling, enforced frequent mandatory holidays. Weddings, wakes, and births might mean a week off quaffing ale to celebrate, and when wandering jugglers or sporting events came to town, the peasant expected time off for entertainment. There were labour-free Sundays, and when the ploughing and harvesting seasons were over, the peasant got time to rest, too.
In fact, economist Juliet Shor found that during periods of particularly high wages, such as 14th-century England, peasants might put in no more than 150 days a year. As for the modern American worker? After a year on the job, she gets an average of eight vacation days annually.
A history of dwindling vacation days
It wasn’t supposed to turn out this way: John Maynard Keynes, one of the founders of modern economics, made a famous prediction that by 2030, advanced societies would be wealthy enough that leisure time, rather than work, would characterize national lifestyles. So far, that forecast is not looking good.
What happened? Some cite the victory of the modern eight-hour a day, 40-hour working week over the punishing 70 or 80 hours a 19th century worker spent toiling as proof that we’re moving in the right direction.
But Americans have long since kissed the 40-hour working week goodbye, and Shor’s examination of work patterns reveals that the 19th century was an aberration in the history of human labour. When workers fought for the eight-hour working day, they weren’t trying to get something radical and new, but rather to restore what their ancestors had enjoyed before industrial capitalists and the electric light bulb came on the scene.
Go back 200, 300, or 400 years and you find that most people did not work very long hours at all. In addition to relaxing during long holidays, the medieval peasant took his sweet time eating meals, and the day often included time for an afternoon snooze.
“The tempo of life was slow, even leisurely; the pace of work relaxed,” notes Shor. “Our ancestors may not have been rich, but they had an abundance of leisure.”
Many American workers must keep on working through public holidays, and vacation days often go unused. Even when we finally carve out a holiday, many of us answer emails and “check in” whether we’re camping with the kids or trying to kick back on the beach.
Some blame the American worker for not taking what is her due. But in a period of consistently high unemployment, job insecurity and weak labour unions, employees may feel no choice but to accept the conditions set by the culture and the individual employer.
In a world of “at will” employment, where the work contract can be terminated at any time, it’s not easy to raise objections.
It’s true that the New Deal brought back some of the conditions that farm workers and artisans from the Middle Ages took for granted, but since the 1980s things have gone steadily downhill. With secure long-term employment slipping away, people jump from job to job, so seniority no longer offers the benefits of additional days off. The rising trend of hourly and part-time work, stoked by the Great Recession, means that for many, the idea of a guaranteed vacation is a dim memory.
The consequences of constantly working
Ironically, this cult of endless toil doesn’t really help the bottom line.
Study after study shows that overworking reduces productivity. On the other hand, performance increases after a vacation, and workers come back with restored energy and focus. The longer the vacation, the more relaxed and energised people feel upon returning to the office.
Economic crises give austerity-minded politicians excuses to talk of decreasing time off, increasing the retirement age and cutting into social insurance programs and safety nets that were supposed to allow us a fate better than working until we drop. In Europe, where workers average 25 to 30 days off per year, politicians like French President Francois Hollande and former Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras have sent signals that the culture of longer vacations is coming to an end.
But the belief that shorter vacations bring economic gains doesn’t appear to add up.
According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) the Greeks, who face a horrible economy, work more hours than any other Europeans. In Germany, an economic powerhouse, workers rank second to last in number of hours worked. Despite more time off, German workers are the eighth most productive in Europe, while the long-toiling Greeks rank 24 out of 25 in productivity.
Beyond burnout, vanishing vacations make our relationships with families and friends suffer. Our health is deteriorating: depression and higher risk of death are among the outcomes for our no-vacation nation. Some forward-thinking people have tried to reverse this trend, like progressive economist Robert Reich, who has argued in favour of a mandatory three weeks off for all American workers. Congressman Alan Grayson proposed the Paid Vacation Act of 2009, but alas, the bill didn’t even make it to the floor of Congress.
Speaking of Congress, its members seem to be the only people in America getting as much down time as the medieval peasant. In recent years, they’ve gotten upward of 239 days in vacation time.
Not content with making millions landless in the 18th century through enclosure, a new Treasury unit is now stealing Britain’s remaining family farmland, for Blackrock
Five suggestions to Save British Farming:
set up a charitable fund to pay off distressed farmers’ inheritance bills;
institute a chain of collectively owned farm shops in every market town to act as a mini supermarket for seasonal produce;
demand boycotts of supermarkets and/or products where price fixing is taking place, robbing farmers;
blockade factory farms and mass mechanised greenhouses owned by front companies for private equity firms;
set up a direct action group to occupy and obstruct individuals and businesses which are destroying UK family farming.
How’s that for a start. Please email me or add your own suggestions in the comments at the bottom.
No Socialist distancing
Simon Fairlie’s Land Magazine follows the Socialist Workers Party and George Monbiot , dancing to the World Economic Forum’s global finance capitalism tune
STROUD: 02Jan24: Tony Gosling takes a look at UK Green ‘social justice’ campaigns’ extraordinary distancing themselves from farming’s grassroots, and unwitting sucking up to a Swiss-based oligopoly who want corporations to rule the world
2022 to 2024 were a terrible year for The Land Magazine. The two founding editors were evicted from their home at Monkton Wyld near Lyme Regis. Simon Fairlie through the kangaroo courts in the Autumn of 2024 while Gill Barron was bullied out of the same rural community the year before.
The screaming irony now is the four individuals who hoofed Simon out of Monkton Wylde as residents and trustees simply walked away from their roles and the community … just a couple of weeks after Simon drove his last van-load of belongings away from his, and the magazine’s beautiful old home.
But Gill and Simon did considerably better than ‘One Man and his Dogger’ Robin Page, author, journalist, national advocate for wildlife-friendly farming who was evicted in 2021 from the eight-figure valued Countryside Restoration Trust he founded and built up over decades. He died 18 months later, of cancer, and a broken heart.
Simon Fairlie founded The Land Magazine in 1996 which began, after The Land Is Ours successful six-month long Guinness occupation in Wandsworth. As ‘Land Essays’, the ‘long read’ version of The Land Is Ours newsletter, it was always, as now, an occasional publication but in the last decade or so it has failed to address the contradictions in the ‘zero carbon’ agenda, such as new forest burning power stations, soaring living costs and more recently the supermarket and energy price-fixing assault on Britain’s family farms.
In the 2020s, sadly, my contributions, even to the Land Mag’s. letters page, have been spiked. The editorial has turned decidedly anti-livestock, anti game-hunting or poaching, backing the WEF’s discredited Rewilding’ programme (now Robin’s CRT is conveniently out of the way) promoted by George Monbiot’s partner, Rebecca Wrigley. Keeping it, top-down and where possible foundation funded, in the Davos family.
No Charmer: Starmer The Farmer Harmer
November and December 2024 saw two unprecedented family farmer protests at Westminster with around 10,000 turning out to a lobby called by the NFU in November and 6-700 tractors filling Whitehall, as the DEFRA select committee asked why the Treasury hadn’t just ended business rollover relief where millionaires were using farmland as a tax dodge, in the run-up to Christmas.
Taking farms off families is against everything social justice or environmental campaigners believe in. Yet in the 2025 Land Magazine [see below] Simon argues that the demise of small farms since 1984 is because there hasn’t been inheritance tax on larger farms. One wonders if he actually talks to or knows any farmers, who will tell him that a whole raft of price and ever-changing ‘variety’ policies and punitive penalties, imposed by supermarkets, have been cutting deep into margins right across farming ever since Thatcherism.
Families, and the secure tenure, such as freehold and copyhold, they have passed down, have been the bedrock of national food security since hunter-gatherers began to establish farming in England 6,000 years ago. It was the increasing surpluses these families produced, as they honed their craft over countless generations, that allowed for towns to grow and civilisation to flourish.
Ideally smallholdings and market gardens should be viable but that’s not been the case roughly since the 1970s, again since Thatcher and the supermarkets took over. You could argue today’s bigger farms, over 750 acres say, should be taxed, over 1000 definitely … but not ONLY if they are in individual ownership. Families who intend to pass their land or homes on to their children are ALWAYS the best stewards of the land.
Taking it off families starts to sound like the son of the Nazi nuclear bomb scientist Klaus Schwab’s ‘You will own nothing, and be happy’ brigade again. The big institutional and feudal landowners, including Crown Estate, Duchys of Cornwall & Lancaster, Church of England, Ministry of Defence, Forestry England, Duke of Westminster etc etc all have their land in trust or Ltd companies so will avoid the tax these family farmers have to pay.
Rachel Reeves is not John McDonnell. When Jeremy Corbyn was bounced out of winning the 2017 General Election by Labour party apparatchiks and the London media, a new finance capitalism friendly Labour party under the iron grip of Starmer and Reeves arrived.
The good old 2003 illegal war party, with Blair and Campbell major figures behind the scenes, was approved fit to govern, by good King Charles and the City of London. When the high priest of finance capitalism Blackrock’s Larry Fink was schmoozed by Reeves and Starmer Downing Street in November 2024.
The Family Farm Tax is part of a much wider post-war attack by global finance capitalism, which accelerated under Thatcher, on people who work land they own, to feed us. Added to skyrocketing energy prices, ridiculous supermarket demands, etc, all brought about through fascist price-fixing, land put on the market to pay the tax or just to escape the ridiculous hours and negative margins, benefits…? Those who finance: solar farms, giant automated planting/harvesting greenhouses, factory farmers, industrial agriculture, carbon offset firms, those clear-cutting forestry as a biofuel. The list goes on and on as far as a speculator with pound signs in their eyes can dream.
But more importantly we are witnessing the beginning of a further wave of enclosure. This time, land is not being stolen from peasants by large farmers. Its beginning the move from private, into corporate hands. And The Land Magazine, and Land Workers Alliance, along with traditional left-wing workers groups such as the SWP are cheering it on. ‘You see those farmers all vote Tory’. ‘Why shouldn’t they pay inheritance tax just like everyone else’.
Simon Fairlie has become George Monbiot lite. Simon still clings to that cruel anti-vegan trope, meat-eating, and is therefore not 4th Reich WEF extremist enough for the Guardian. Which, while everything is done to keep Simon on side, remains the George Monbiot domain.
Nevertheless… I’m not here to sell you anything, I’m the sort of editor who will invite all sides to the dinner table. So, over to Simon…
The “Family Farm Tax”, might there be up-sides?
By Simon Fairlie, December 2024
In the Spring of 1920 Sir Nicholas Bacon of Raveningham Hall in Norfolk wrote to the tenants farming his land:
It has unfortunately become necessary for me to follow the course already pursued by many landowners — that is, of selling a considerable portion of my estate . . . Heavy war taxation, the great increase of Death Duties of last year’s budget, the increased cost of living, and the growing up of my family, for whom provision must be made, compel this step. I can only hope that many of my tenants may be able to purchase their farms, and so not leave their homes.
The four years that followed the First World War witnessed an unprecedented shift in landownership, something akin to land reform. “England is changing hands,” The Times observed. To counteract inheritance tax and other expenses, large numbers of aristocratic farming estates were sold off. No one knows exactly how many acres, and claims that “a quarter of England changed hands” may be exaggerated. What is known is that:
owner-occupation increased from 10.9 percent of the cultivated area of England and Wales in 1914, to 36 per cent of the cultivated area in 1927 . . . roughly one quarter of the cultivated area changed from being tenanted land to being land owned by the farmers.
Many of Britain’s independent family farms owe their existence to increased death duties, first introduced by the Liberal Lord Harcourt in 1894 and reinforced by Lloyd George twenty- five years later. It is somewhat ironic then, that many of these farmers are now vociferously opposed to parallel increases in Inheritance Tax, made in the Labour Government’s Autumn Budget. Agricultural property inheritance tax relief has been removed, theoretically from all farms valued at over £1 million, though after allowances for spouses etc this is more likely to equate to £3 million. The Government states that some three quarters of all farms will be unaffected, but nonetheless the National Farmers’ Union has dubbed the move “the Family Farm Tax”. Its President, Tom Bradshaw claims to have
heard about distressed elderly parents who are having to apologise to their children in tears for something that isn’t their fault, telling them they’re sorry because they feel they’re now a burden on the family.
Besides the need to plug the much vaunted £22 billion budget shortfall, some of the thinking behind the new Labour Government’s assault on Inheritance Tax relief can be traced to the work of the French economist Thomas Piketty and others, who have noted that rising wealth inequality is fuelled by the flow of inheritances from one generation to the next. The ratio of personal wealth to national income is rising and over the last 20 years the value of property and land has increased far faster than wages or inflation.
Nowhere is this tendency more noticeable than in the farming sector which is inherently dependent on land and property. A 200 acre farm worth in the region of million, might yield an annual net income of only £25,000, just one percent or even nothing at all other than the available subsidies. In such cases the real profit lies in the increasing value of the property, and many farm-owners are simultaneously underpaid workers and fat capitalists. Under these frankly bonkers economic conditions, failing farmers throw in the towel and cash in, while successful ones engross their holdings, leading to the consolidation of assets that is endemic to unregulated capitalism. As farms get bigger and economies of scale increase, the margins dictated by the supermarkets decline and another cohort of farms finds it impossible to make ends meet, and so it continues.
The National Farmers’ Union, which is at heart a landowners’ union, knows only too well how to exploit this schizoid role, posing to the public as the defender of the hard-pressed food producer, while advocating policies that benefit the engrossing landowner, and that is precisely what it is doing in respect of the “Family Farm Tax”. Since 1984 the regime of exemption from Inheritance Tax has accompanied the loss of around half of the farms under 100 hectares in England and Wales and an increase in those over 200 hectares. To claim that removing the exemption for the largest farms will threaten family farms is brazen hypocrisy.
How much impact this measure will actually have is hard to say, but if it goes any way towards breaking up large holdings, and releasing land onto the market that is cheaper and more accessible to new entrants, that is very much to be welcomed. The total area of land currently coming onto the market
around 150,000 acres in 2023 is less than a quarter of the area traded in 1950, and an even smaller proportion of the area that changed hands in 1920.
Only one caveat has been voiced by the Tenant Farmers’ Association, representing farmers whose hard work boosts the largest landowners’ incomes, and who may find the land they rent sold to pay off Inheritance Tax. Its Chief Executive, George Dunn has written:
“The £1 million tax-free exemption may help small owner occupiers, but it will not help small tenant farmers on large estates, particularly those occupying under insecure Farm Business Tenancies. The Chancellor of the Exchequer must think again. The 2026 legislation must include a provision to exempt land let for 10 or more years. Without this provision, we could see the loss of many small family farms”.
Alternatively some of the money raised could be used to help fund any such tenants who wished to buy the property.
Simon Fairlie is founder, now co-editor of TheLandMagazine.org.uk and the printed mag with Mike Hannis (Kingshill), Gill Barron and SM Parsons
SOURCES
J.Beckett and M.Turner “End of the Old Order? FML Thompson, the Land Question, and the Burden of Ownership in England” AgHR 55,11.
Anthony B Atkinson, “Wealth and Inheritance in Britain from 1896 to the Present”, LSE OnLine, 2018.
A property company linked to Guy Hands has agreed to sell 36,000 military homes to the UK’s Ministry of Defence for almost £6bn, signalling an end to a long-running battle between the billionaire and the government.
Annington will hand over its 999-year lease on the 36,347 homes, known as the Married Quarters Estate, to the MoD and receive £5.99bn in return – almost twice as much as Hands’ private equity company Terra Firma paid for Annington more than a decade ago, but less than the £8bn the homes were valued at last year.
The sale ends court proceedings brought by Annington over planned housing reforms. In September, the company took a legal fight with the UK government to the European court of human rights over fears it could lose significant sums as a result of the new Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act. It also launched a challenge in the high court on the same grounds.
In 1996, under the then defence secretary, Michael Portillo, the Conservative government sold 57,400 houses used by military service men and women and their families to Annington for £1.7bn – making the company the biggest residential property owner in England and Wales.
The MoD rented back the homes on a 200-year lease at a discount but also agreed to pay for their maintenance and refurbishment.
Annington refurbished and sold nearly 20,000 homes.
In 2012, Terra Firma bought Annington from the Japanese investment bank Nomura Holdings for £3.2bn. Hands, one of Britain’s highest-profile private equity investors, launched Terra Firma in 2002 and has since made more than £15bn in investments, including the record company EMI, Tilia Homes and Welcome Hotels.
In January 2022, the MoD said it was hoping to take back full ownership of the homes through enfranchisement rules under existing leasehold legislation.
The MoD said the deal brought back military housing into public hands and ended a “huge annual rental bill” to save about £230m a year.
John Healey, the defence secretary, said: “There is still a lot of work to do to deliver the homes our military families deserve, and these problems will not be fixed overnight. But this is a decisive break with the failed approach of the past and a major step forward on that journey.”
Ian Rylatt, the Annington chief executive, said the sale represented a new chapter for the estate and “ends a costly and distracting legal dispute, allowing everyone to move forward”.
Accommodation for service personnel and their families is “shocking”, as issues with damp and mould persist, according to a report from the Commons defence committee published last week.
It found that two-thirds of the homes for service families “need extensive refurbishment or rebuilding” along with a third of the homes rented by individuals. The family homes are part of the Annington portfolio, but the government is responsible for their maintenance.
Last year, the Defence Infrastructure Organisation, which is responsible for maintaining and servicing military accommodation, was given £400m to tackle mould, damp and other problems.
The report found that its contracts resulted in “poor contractor performance, poor quality of maintenance and repair work, and a poor lived experience for many serving personnel and their families”.
The MoD will transfer 159 homes worth £55m to Annington within 12 months as part of a pre-existing agreement.
Contracts were exchanged in relation to the £5.99bn sale on Monday and the deal is expected to close on 9 January. The sale proceeds will be used to pay down Annington’s debt, with another portion distributed to shareholders, including UK pension funds and sovereign wealth funds.
The firm, which has 1,600 other rental properties, also plans to reinvest in the UK property market.
set up a charitable fund to pay off distressed farmers’ inheritance bills;
institute a chain of collectively owned farm shops in every market town to act as a mini supermarket for seasonal produce;
demand boycotts of supermarkets and/or products where price fixing is taking place, robbing farmers;
blockade factory farms and mass mechanised greenhouses owned by front companies for private equity firms;
set up a direct action group to occupy and obstruct individuals and businesses which are destroying UK family farming.
How’s that for a start? Please add your own suggestions in the comments below. www.tlio.org.uk
There has been a huge surge in wealthy individuals and institutions buying up farmland across England, according to new analysis, with a parallel drop in the amount of agricultural land actively used for farming.
Farmers have been descending on Westminster to protest Labour’s new inheritance tax rules, which could threaten to close a well-used tax loophole for the wealthy.
Thousands of agricultural workers have been protesting in central London, with Tom Bradshaw, the president of the National Farmers’ Union, saying he has “never seen the united sense of anger” there in the industry today.
Speaking to reporters en-route to Rio de Janeiro, the prime minister reinforced the point that the overwhelming majority of farmers would be exempt from the changes, suggesting this message may not be getting through.
“Obviously, there’s an issue around inheritance tax and I do understand the concern.
“But for a typical case, which is parents with a farm they want to pass on to one of their children, by the time you’ve taken into account not only the exemption for the farm property itself, but also the exemption for spouse to spouse, then parent to child, it’s £3 million before any inheritance tax will be payable.
“Over the £3 million, it’s then 20 per cent rather than the usual rate and it’s payable over 10 years.”
Data collected by property consultants Strutt & Parker show farmers are increasingly being squeezed out of the agricultural land market by wealthy investors.
While non-farmers were responsible for less than a third of farmland purchases in 2010, by last year this had risen to 56 per cent.
In the last year alone, 400,000 hectares (988,422 acres) of agricultural land has been taken out of use for farming.
The analysis is linking this to financial advice that recommends the potential tax breaks of investing in farmland.
MPs Why didn’t Treasury abolish business rollover relief, rather than put inheritance tax on farmers?
Jeremy Moody, secretary and adviser at Central Association for Agricultural Valuers, added that the tax changes would not discourage companies from snapping-up farmland, adding: “It is only individuals who die.”
Hundreds of farmers in tractors descended on Westminster to protest, while MPs heard less than half of estates claiming agricultural relief made any income from farming in five years
Farmers in tractors staged another protest over the government’s inheritance tax changes – despite fresh claims large landowners are the big winners from current rules.
Hundreds descended on London, with go-slow demonstrations on dual carriageways in a number of other places. It marked a second day of action in the wake of Rachel Reeves’s Budget announcement that farms worth more than £1million will pay 20% inheritance tax from 2026.
Farmers called the change “another kick in the teeth”, while some backed cutting off food supplies in the new year as “wake up call”.
It came as MPs scrutinising the shake-up heard more than half those claiming a lucrative tax break to avoid death duties have “no involvement in farming in any way”.
The 20% inheritance tax rate – half that for everyone else – replaces two types of relief worth up to 100%.
Dr Arun Advani, director of Centre for the Analysis of Taxation, told the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee: “Less than half of the estates who are claiming agricultural relief have any income from farming anywhere in the five years before death.”
About 44% of the claims are from people you would think of as farmers.”
The others, he said, are “a mix of people who own a house and some pony paddocks or who own land and let it out to a lot of people but are not involved in any farming in any way.”
The Mirror revealed this month how a quarter of all England’s farmland belongs to just 2,500 owners. The highly respected Institute for Fiscal Studies says those paying more tax under the changes would be heavily concentrated among large wealthy landowners.
But Dr Advani warned, at 20%, the inheritance tax rate still made it attractive for the wealthy to buy up agricultural land, pushing up prices for genuine smaller family farmers who want to work the land themselves.
Jeremy Moody, secretary and adviser at Central Association for Agricultural Valuers, added that the tax changes would not discourage companies from snapping-up farmland, adding: “It is only individuals who die.”Tom Bradshaw, president of the National Farmers’ Union, claimed Ms Reeves had refused to meet.
War and Theft: The Takeover of Ukraine’s Agricultural Land exposes the financial interests and the dynamics at play leading to further concentration of land and finance.
The total amount of land controlled by oligarchs, corrupt individuals, and large agribusinesses is over nine million hectares — exceeding 28 percent of Ukraine’s arable land. The largest landholders are a mix of Ukrainian oligarchs and foreign interests — mostly European and North American as well as the sovereign fund of Saudi Arabia. Prominent US pension funds, foundations, and university endowments are invested through NCH Capital, a US-based private equity fund.
Several agribusinesses, still largely controlled by oligarchs, have opened up to Western banks and investment funds — including prominent ones such as Kopernik, BNP, or Vanguard — who now control part of their shares. Most of the large landholders are substantially indebted to Western funds and institutions, notably the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and the World Bank.Western financing to Ukraine in recent years has been tied to a drastic structural adjustment program that has required austerity and privatization measures, including the creation of a land market for the sale of agricultural land. President Zelenskyy put the land reform into law in 2020 against the will of the vast majority of the population who feared it would exacerbate corruption and reinforce control by powerful interests in the agricultural sector. Findings of the report concur with these concerns. While large landholders are securing massive financing from Western financial institutions, Ukrainian farmers — essential for ensuring domestic food supply — receive virtually no support. With the land market in place, amidst high economic stress and war, this difference of treatment will lead to more land consolidation by large agribusinesses.
The report also sounds the alarm that Ukraine’s crippling debt is being used as a leverage by the financial institutions to drive post-war reconstruction towards further privatization and liberalization reforms in several sectors, including agriculture.
War And Theft: The Takeover of Ukraine’s Agricultural Land
by Frédéric Mousseau and Eve Devillers. For The Oakland Institute, PO Box 18978 Oakland, CA 94619 USA
The war in Ukraine has been at the center stage of foreign policy and media reports since February 2022. Little attention, however, has been given to a major issue, which is at the core of the conflict – who controls the agricultural land in the country known as the “breadbasket of Europe?”This report addresses this gap – identifying the interests controlling Ukraine’s agricultural land and presenting an analysis of the dynamics at play around land tenure in the country. This includes the highly controversial land reform that took place in 2021 as part of the structural adjustment program initiated under the auspices of Western financial institutions, after the installation of a pro-European Union (EU) government following the Maidan Revolution in 2014.
With 33 million hectares of arable land, Ukraine has large swaths of the most fertile farmland in the world. 1 Misguided privatization and corrupt governance since the early 1990s have concentrated land in the hands of a new oligarchic class. Around 4.3 million hectares are under large-scale agri- culture, with the bulk, three million hectares, in the hands of just a dozen large agribusiness firms.
In addition, according to the government, about five million hectares – the size of two Crimea – have been “stolen” by private interests from the state of Ukraine. The total amount of land controlled by oligarchs, corrupt individuals, and large agribusinesses is thus over nine million hectares, exceeding 28 percent of the country’s arable land. The rest is used by over eight million Ukrainian farmers.
The largest landholders are a mix of oligarchs and a variety of foreign interests – mostly European and North American, including a US-based private equity fund and the sovereign fund of Saudi Arabia. All but one of the ten largest landholding firms are registered overseas, mainly in tax havens such as Cyprus or Luxembourg. Even when run and still largely controlled by an oligarch founder, a number of firms have gone public with Western banks and investment funds now controlling a significant amount of their shares.
The report identifies many prominent investors, including Vanguard Group, Kopernik Global Investors, BNP Asset Management Holding, Goldman Sachs-owned NN Investment Partners Holdings, and Norges Bank Investment Management, which manages Norway’s sovereign wealth fund. A number of large US pension funds, foundations, and university endowments are also invested in Ukrainian land through NCH Capital – a US-based private equity fund, which is the fifth largest landholder in the country.
Most of these firms are substantially indebted to Western financial institutions, in particular the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), the European Investment Bank (EIB), and the International Finance Corporation (IFC) – the private sector arm of the World Bank. Together, these institutions have been major lenders to Ukrainian agribusinesses, with close to US$1.7 billion lent to just six of Ukraine’s largest landholding firms in recent years. Other key lenders are a mix of mainly European and North American financial institutions, both public and private. Not only does this debt gives creditors financial stakes in the operation of the agribusinesses, but also confers a significant level of leverage over them. This was evidenced by the debt restructuring of UkrLandFarming, one of Ukraine’s largest landholders, which involved creditors including the Export-Import agencies of the US, Canada, and Denmark, among others, and led to important organizational changes including layoffs of thousands of workers.
This international financing directly benefits oligarchs, several of whom face accusations of fraud and corrupt dealings, as well as the foreign funds and firms associated as shareholders or creditors. Meanwhile, Ukrainian farmers have had to operate with limited amounts of land and financing, and many are now on the verge of poverty. Data shows that these farmers receive virtually no support compared to agribusinesses and oligarchs.
The Partial Credit Guarantee Fund established by the World Bank to support small farmers is only US$5.4 million, a negligible amount compared to the billions channeled to large agribusinesses.
In recent years, Western countries and institutions have provided massive military and economic assistance to Ukraine, which became the top recipient of US foreign aid – marking the first time since the Marshall Plan that a European country holds this top spot.
As of December 2022, less than one year into the war, the US has allocated over US$113 billion to Ukraine, including US$65 billion of military aid, 8 which is more than the entire budget of the State Department and USAID globally (US$58 billion).
The report details how Western aid has been conditioned to a drastic structural adjustment program, which includes austerity measures, cuts in social safety nets, and the privatization of key sectors of the economy. A central condition has been the creation of a land market, put into law in 2020 under President Zelenskyy, despite opposition from a majority of Ukrainians fearing that it will exacerbate corruption in the agricultural sector and reinforce its control by powerful interests.
The findings of the report validate this concern, showing that the creation of a land market will likely further increase the amount of agricultural land in the hands of oligarchs and large agribusiness firms. The latter have already started expanding their access to land. Kernel has announced plans to increase its land bank to 700,000 hectares – up from 506,000 hectares in 2021.
Similarly, MHP, which currently controls 360,000 hectares of land, seeks to expand its holdings to 550,000 hectares. MHP is also reportedly circumventing restrictions on the purchase of land by asking its employees to buy land and lease it to the company.
Additionally, by supporting large agribusinesses, international financial institutions are in effect subsidizing the concentration of land and an industrial model of agriculture based on the intensive use of synthetic inputs, fossil fuels, and large-scale monocropping – long shown to be environmentally and socially destructive.
By contrast, small scale farmers in Ukraine demonstrate resilience and a great potential for leading the expansion of a different production model based on agroecology, environmental sustainability, and the production of healthy food. It is Ukraine’s small and medium-sized farmers who guarantee the country’s food security whereas large agribusinesses are geared towards export markets.
In December 2022, a coalition of farmers, academics, and NGOs called on the Ukrainian government to suspend the 2020 land reform law and all market transactions of land during the war and post- war period, “in order to guarantee the national security and preservation of territorial integrity of the country in wartime and post-war reconstruction period.”
As explained by Prof. Olena Borodina of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine (NASU), “Today, thousands of rural boys and girls, farmers, are fighting and dying in the war. They have lost everything. The processes of free land sale and purchase are increasingly liberalized and advertised. This really threatens the rights of Ukrainians to their land, for which they give their lives.”
At a time of tremendous suffering and displacement, wherein countless lives have been lost and massive financial resources spent for the control of Ukraine, this report raises major concerns about the future of land and food production in the country, which is likely to become more consolidated and controlled by oligarchs and foreign interests.
These concerns are exacerbated by Ukraine’s staggering and growing foreign debt, contracted at the expense of the population’s living conditions as a result of the measures required under the structural adjustment program. Ukraine is now the world’s third-largest debtor to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) 17 and its crippling debt burden will likely result in additional pressure from its creditors, bondholders, and international financial institutions on how post-war reconstruction – estimated to cost US$750 billion – should happen.
These powerful actors have already been explicit that they will use their leverage to further privatize the country’s public sector and liberalize its agriculture.
The end of the war should be the moment and opportunity for just the opposite, i.e. the redesign of an economic model no longer dominated by oligarchy and corruption, but where land and resources are controlled by and benefit all Ukrainians. This could form the basis for the transformation of the agricultural sector to make it more democratic and environmentally and socially sustainable. International policy and financial support should be geared towards this transformation, to benefit people and farmers rather than oligarchs and foreign financial interests.
Here’s PM Starmer’s NFU 2023 speech which has got so many farmers fuming. By imposing inheritance tax in the October budget his promises to support family farms and stabilise the market for food… all broken
This is a turning point in British history, he predicts. “People will come to realise this is a ‘closure of the mines’ moment for UK agriculture, in the same way it affected those mining towns for generations, it will change rural Britain and the British landscape forever. It knocks on to everything in market towns, the local shops, the pubs, the schools, the livestock auctioneers, the suppliers, the drivers – the lot. Family farms are just the base of the pyramid. The ‘£1 million’ sum exposes it. It’s not just short of the mark, it’s ten times short of the mark.”
Clive Bailye has always known that farming is a long game. As a child, it was one of the first lessons his father taught him as they trampled around their family’s fields in south Staffordshire. A generation before, Bailye’s father had been taught the same by his father, who began with just two acres after the Second World War.
‘Some talk about going on strike, refusing to let food leave their farms … but everyone’s terrified of being imprisoned for being the one to organise it,’ says farmer Clive Bailye
Optimism is at the heart of things. You sow crops with planning, caution and a small dose of hope. You harvest with one eye on the next year, and the year after that. And in lean times, you have to remind yourself that things will always get better. Recently, as farmers across the UK have been hit by all manner of blights – the climate emergency, geopolitical strife, ever more powerful supermarkets, Brexit repercussions – he’s found comfort in that attitude.
Then opposition leader, Sir Keir Starmer, addresses 2023 NFU Conference in Birmingham
“This is a multigenerational, long-term vocation. You can’t make money in a single year, and it doesn’t work on a single generation,” Bailye says. “[Farmers] have been on our knees, but you keep the next generation in mind and think, ‘It might not be working for me, but think ahead. It will get there eventually, even if it’s 200 years.’” He sighs. “Well, after this, that’s just not the case anymore. This is the end of the line.”
The “this” Bailye refers to is Labour’s Budget announcement that from April 2026, it will reform the Agricultural Property Relief (APR), which allows farmers to easily pass their businesses to the next generation, by introducing a 20 per cent tax rate on the value of all farms and businesses worth more than £1 million. It is an inheritance tax tweak that seems not just ill thought-out but, to some at least, wilfully capricious. Farmers are united in disbelief and outrage; behind them, a chorus of high-profile support grows more and more vociferous. If Labour felt taking on farmers would be easy, they may now be thinking twice.
“Rachel Reeves. I literally daren’t comment,” wrote Jeremy Clarkson – who is, among other things, surely the loudest and most influential voice in British agriculture these days – to his eight million followers on X. He eventually did dare, of course. “Farmers. I know that you have been shafted today. But please don’t despair. Just look after yourselves for five short years and this shower will be gone.”
Clarkson’s neighbour, the popular YouTuber and farmer Harry Metcalfe, simply called it “the end of family farms in the UK”. Rachel Johnson, the writer and broadcaster, asked if it is “really worth f—ing family farms, undermining food security, forcing land clearances and fire sales of agricultural assets, breaking the continuity of generations of stewardship, just to raise a measly £500 million to chuck into the black hole?”
James Rebanks, the bestselling author and upland farmer, also took to social media to rail against various decisions and betrayals – both by Labour and Conservative governments – against the farming community. “The damage done to these relationships will last for a very long time – it’s a disaster of epic proportions,” he said, as well as referring to the UK as “one of the stupidest countries on earth when it comes to [agricultural] policy”.
And Kirstie Allsopp, the TV property presenter, wrote that Reeves has “f- – – -d all farmers, […] destroyed their ability to pass farms on to their children, and broken the future of all our great estates. The Government has zero understanding of what matters to rural voters.” Later she wondered aloud what all this meant for The Archers.
Bailye, 51, is less sweary but, being in the direct line of fire, even more distressed. He variously calls it a “kick in the teeth”, a “kick in the b- – — ks” and a “complete blindside” for farmers like him. The 750 acres of combined arable crops he farms near Lichfield was inherited from his father, who took it over from his father. Through sweat and toil, judicious borrowing and wise investments, each generation “worked, made a profit, paid their taxes and managed to grow the business a bit”.
But that was then. “I’ve got two boys, one’s 13 and one’s 11, and they’ve shown an interest but I’ve never known whether they’d take it on after me. Well, I do know now: it isn’t available to them. And quite frankly I’d encourage them to do absolutely anything else, given the way we’re treated by governments.”
In Bailye’s view, Labour’s decision to treat farmers as excessively wealthy types who aren’t paying their fair share suggests the Government has fallen for the great fallacy about his livelihood: that because farmers have vast lands, usually a big old house and some very expensive machinery, they must be stinking rich.
“The idea of ‘farmers pretending they’re poor’ is ridiculous. In terms of asset wealth, there’s no getting away from the idea that if you own a farm, and you have the equipment to farm, you have significant asset wealth. But you can’t live off assets. You live off the profits those assets generate, and typical farming returns, if you’re good at it and smart with subsidies and know what you’re doing, you’re doing well if you’re getting 1 or 2 per cent return on investment.
“That doesn’t make people wealthy when it comes to putting food on the table and keeping the lights on. There are family farms with well in excess of £1 million in assets that are living below the poverty line, and certainly far less than the living wage. But that’s a difficult thing to get across to the general public if you see a farmer in his big house and shiny tractor.”
Victoria Vyvyan, president of the Country Land and Business Association, called Labour’s move “nothing short of a betrayal” of the agricultural community, given now-Secretary of State Steve Reed had last year said: “We have no intention of changing [Agricultural Property Relief].”
Vyvyan added that an estimated 70,000 family farms could be hit by the new rules: “This puts dynamite beneath the livelihoods of British farming, and flies in the face of growth and investment.” Tom Bradshaw, president of the National Farmers’ Union (NFU), agreed, calling it a “disastrous Budget for family farmers”, especially since there was a “shameless breaking of clear promises [that] will snatch away the next generation’s ability to carry on producing British food, plan for the future and shepherd the environment.”
How agricultural property relief works
You can pass on some agricultural property free of inheritance tax, either during your lifetime or as part of your will.
Agricultural property that qualifies for agricultural relief is land or pasture that is used to grow crops or to rear animals.
It also includes:
Growing crops Stud farms for breeding and rearing horses and grazing Trees that are planted and harvested at least every 10 years (short-rotation coppice) Land not currently being farmed under the “habitat scheme” Land not currently being farmed under a crop rotation scheme The value of milk quota associated with the land Some agricultural shares and securities Farm buildings, farm cottages and farmhouses
These do not qualify for agricultural relief:
Farm equipment and machinery Derelict buildings Harvested crops Livestock Property subject to a binding contract for sale
Source: Gov.uk
Bailye is now having to face his own future. His parents, who still own the land, are alive, albeit elderly and in ill health. “When things pass to me, to pay that tax bill I’d have no choice but to sell at least 20 per cent of the assets passed to me, and what would be left wouldn’t be a viable farm, or I’d have to borrow to pay that tax bill, but with 1 per cent returns, you can’t afford the interest, never mind the repayments. No bank would lend it. So I’d have no choice but to sell the lot. And that would be it,” he says.
Even if he could secure that loan or make the business viable again, the next generation only inherits a burden. “Let’s say, for argument’s sake, that you did manage to get through that, why would you want to pass that on to your own children for them to go through the same? You wouldn’t. It’s removed any incentive to invest in UK agriculture whatsoever.”
In his spare time, Bailye runs the Farming Forum, a website he calls “Mumsnet for farmers”. On Thursday it was ablaze with “thousands” of apoplectic agricultural workers and landowners at a loss as to why they have been targeted. Bailye now wonders what form of protest they’ll take. “You’ve got a demographic of people now who I think feel they have very little to lose. And there are very few industries that have the ability to literally shut down the economy. I mean, can you imagine just a thousand tractors driving, quite legally at 20mph, at rush hour, on main roads? You’d grind the country to a halt,” he says.
“Others talk about going on strike, refusing to let food leave their farms. But can they afford to do that? Everybody wants to do something, but everyone’s terrified of being imprisoned for being the one to organise it…”
Family farmers are, he concedes, “a small minority”, but they are also the vital warp in the fabric of rural communities already under profound stress. Rip that out and the whole lot falls apart, Bailye says, leaving behind only vast “megafarms” or, more likely, former family farmland that will “will inevitably fall into the hands of large corporations and institutional investors that really will have no desire to farm it”.
“They’ll be far more interested in potential development, energy uses and carbon offsetting – all the other uses for farmland that I don’t think most people want. And the irony is that those companies will probably be non-UK or based offshore and not even paying tax anyway…”
This is a turning point in British history, he predicts. “People will come to realise this is a ‘closure of the mines’ moment for UK agriculture, in the same way it affected those mining towns for generations, it will change rural Britain and the British landscape forever. It knocks on to everything in those towns, the local shops, the pubs, the schools, the livestock auctioneers, the markets, the suppliers, the drivers – the lot. Family farms are just the base of the pyramid. I just cannot believe this wasn’t thought through, and the ‘£1 million’ sum exposes it. It’s not just short of the mark, it’s ten times short of the mark.”
On Thursday, farmers on social media were sharing a clip of a politician making very sound points to an audience at the NFU conference just last year. He seemed to get it: “Losing a farm is not like losing any other business, it can’t come back. That’s why the lack of urgency from the Government, the lack of attention to detail, the lack of long-term planning… It’s not on, you deserve better than that.”
The speaker was Sir Keir Starmer. Bailye has now shared the clip himself. “And frankly, the last prime minister who told lies like that had to resign,” he says.
Across the country, farmers have been hit by an almighty, sudden blight. But as always, they’ll play the long game. The next general election is in 2029. Starmer and Reeves may have just sown the seeds of revolt.
British monarchy ‘committed genocide against our people,’ said independent lawmaker Lidia Thorpe.
October 21, 2024 By Noah Keate
King Charles III was heckled by an Australian senator who accused the visiting U.K. monarch of “genocide.”
Lidia Thorpe, an Aboriginal independent lawmaker for Victoria, interrupted proceedings and approached the stage as Charles concluded his speech at Parliament House in the capital city of Canberra.
“This is not your land, you are not my king!” she said.
“You committed genocide against our people,” Thorpe added. “Give us our land back. Give us what you stole from us — our bones, our skulls, our babies, our people. You are a genocidalist.”
Charles was heckled for around a minute before the senator was escorted away by security. The king and other attendees, including Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, remained seated and did not comment on the incident.
It occurred during Charles’ first visit to Australia since ascending to the throne in 2022, and the first visit to the country by a British monarch since 2011.
Australia, a former collection of British colonies, federated and became an independent nation in 1901 but remains a constitutional monarchy with the Charles as its head of state — though in practice his rule is purely symbolic, with no role in Australian day-to-day governance.
Support for an Australian republic is divided, according to polls. Buckingham Palace officials writing on behalf of Charles said earlier this month that “whether Australia becomes a republic” is a “matter for the Australian public to decide.”
Thorpe released a statement Monday arguing that Australia should ditch the monarchy and establish a treaty with indigenous First Nations people.
“The crown invaded this country, has not sought treaty with First Peoples, and committed a genocide of our people,” she said. “King Charles is not the legitimate sovereign of these lands.”
Australia narrowly rejected becoming a republic in 1999, although Charles’ visit has not been without controversy.
WHO IS STOP BOTLEY WEST? www.stopbotleywest.com Stop Botley West Campaign contact@stopbotleywest.com
Mission Statement
The Stop Botley West Campaign (a private company limited by guarantee) is a community group of volunteers dedicated to protecting the heritage, environment and amenities of Oxfordshire from significant and long-term damage caused by the proposed Botley West Utility-Scale Solar Power Station. We will achieve this by stopping or significantly reducing the scale of the Botley West proposal while promoting alternative renewable energy solutions to achieving the decarbonisation of Oxfordshire’s economy.
We believe our ambitious climate targets must be achieved sustainably by:
* Achieving the right balance between clean energy, nature preservation and food security
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The Town of Woodstock and the Villages of Begbroke, Bladon, Cassington, Church Hanborough, Combe, Cumnor, Eynsham, Farmoor, Filchamstead, Freeland, Kidlington, Long Hanborough, North Leigh, Tackley, Wootton, Worton, Yarnton and the fringes of Oxford at Botley all lie within 2km of the site. The Community Consultation Zone comprises 22,000 households with nearly 11,000 of those being within 1.5km of the site.
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It wasn’t supposed to turn out this way: John Maynard Keynes, one of the founders of modern economics, made a famous 
