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[News] Farmers



Bodian

Well-known member
May 3, 2012
14,260
Cumbria


Young farmer comes on TV to claim hardship due to the inheritance tax changes and then inadvertently lets slip that her parents farm is worth a cool £10 million quid! Are we seriously meant to be concerned about the financial wellbeing of someone who will eventually be in the top 1% of the wealthiest people in the country??

Sell the land, keep the house - never have to do a day's work again.

She also kept saying that it will only be £3m if the parents live for 7 years - which is not correct. That's about passing it on completely IHT free.
 
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MJsGhost

Oooh Matron, I'm an
NSC Patron
Jun 26, 2009
5,026
East
Good point to bring up a fair price for food, sustainable farming. ethical produce etc

But, the hard reality is Brits have a poor relationship with food, buying quality isn't a priority even if they can afford it. A holiday, a new car or being able to have 2 takeaways a week is more important.

People ain't queueing for their poulet fermier at the butchers on the weekend
I couldn't agree more (sadly).

Better education on food would be a start.

Actually, make that:
Better education on food would be a start.

My great hope for politics is that a party will emerge that champions education above all else (and properly). Give future generations a proper start in life with great education for everyone - the economy would be more productive and the state will spend less on everything from the NHS to policing/criminal justice and the welfare state.

Everything else is a sticking plaster - we need to plough money into education and everything else will take care of itself.

(Yes, I'm a dreamer - a policy that would take 20 years to bear fruit isn't getting a party elected any time soon)
 


Herr Tubthumper

Well-known member
NSC Patron
Jul 11, 2003
62,697
The Fatherland
From reading this thread it seems farmers have been working every hour god sends for little reward and a pittance in pay all the while supermarkets drive the farmer’s prices down further. They have done this for years/decades with little to no complaint when they certainly had cause to. The minute a Labour government wants to close an unfair IHT tax loop-hole they protest.

Make of this what what you will.
 
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BrightonCottager

Well-known member
Sep 30, 2013
2,768
Brighton
Worth listening to Guy Singh-Watson (Riverford Organics) on this subject. He was interviewed on World at One today (starts at 18:23). Also summarised in his article in this week's vegbox.

20241119_171208.jpg


He recommends increasing the IHT threshold to £7m (& tax rate to 40%) and removing the CGT loophole that allows rural landowners to buy more agricultural land free of tax when they sell some for development.
 
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hans kraay fan club

The voice of reason.
Helpful Moderator
Mar 16, 2005
62,759
Chandlers Ford
A few months ago we were told state schools would be consumed by an exodus from private schools.

Now we're being warned of famine by next summer.

The rich certainly know how to get their voices heard
I was at a very well known school last week, explaining to my customer in the Sport department, why they were going to need to need to find £10k for some (safety related) upgrade.

He agreed the work needs doing, but worried about how he was going to approach the discussion with the bursar. "Everything is under scrutiny ATM, because of the whole VAT thing".

I bit my tongue, and chose not to mention that I'd arrived a couple of minutes late for the meeting, because I'd taken the turning for the School's EQUESTRIAN CENTRE, rather than the Sports Centre...
 


A1X

Well-known member
NSC Patron
Sep 1, 2017
20,544
Deepest, darkest Sussex
I was at a very well known school last week, explaining to my customer in the Sport department, why they were going to need to need to find £10k for some (safety related) upgrade.

He agreed the work needs doing, but worried about how he was going to approach the discussion with the bursar. "Everything is under scrutiny ATM, because of the whole VAT thing".

I bit my tongue, and chose not to mention that I'd arrived a couple of minutes late for the meeting, because I'd taken the turning for the School's EQUESTRIAN CENTRE, rather than the Sports Centre...
There certainly seem to be a lot of long faces in those parts
 


BrightonCottager

Well-known member
Sep 30, 2013
2,768
Brighton
Yeah, I guess land prices could start tumbling now.
Hmm, I'm not sure about tumbling. There'll still be huge incentives to buy agricultural land with the prospect of selling it for housing. IHT rates will be half of the rates for non-agricultural land and payable over 10 years, not straight away. And there are other ways to make money from agricultural land without farming it - solar, carbon and biodiversity offsets, for example.
 






zefarelly

Well-known member
NSC Patron
Jul 7, 2003
22,787
Sussex, by the sea
Yes, but how do you distinguish a farm legitimately bought by an investor to run it as a farm from one bought as an avoidance asset?

I presume even the avoiders install/keep a farm manager and keep on running it as a business?
THere's some good breakdowns on a .gov website . . . . Lots of investors with huge tracts of land, rented out to tennant farmers. It's a very complex issue . . . . I agree with the tax, they should count themselves bloody lucky to get away with half the Inheritance tax everyone else does.

£3m is a pretty bloody good whack to get tax free, and I won't be fooled by the sob stories . . . I've met plenty of scruffy 'poor' farmers at race meetings . . . . With £1m + historic race cars . . . Theres one not far from here with a barn full of cars worth a lot more than £3m . . . . All off the radar obviously.
 


Bozza

You can change this
Helpful Moderator
Jul 4, 2003
57,289
Back in Sussex
From reading this thread it seems farmers have been working every hour god sends for little reward and a pittance in pay all the while supermarkets drive their farmer’s prices down further. They have done this for years/decades with little to no complaint when they certainly had cause to. The minute a Labour government wants to close an unfair IHT tax loop-hole they protest.

Make of this what what you will.
Are you being serious?

Supermarket buying practices has been a talking point for years, likely decades.

From a 5-minute search, I found the following articles, and this sample paragaph is typical of a story I've heard countless times:

"The week began with a price negotiation with a very large supermarket over one of the products that we supply to them. I say “negotiation”; strictly speaking we had already agreed the price once, they wanted it lower still. In fact, I don’t know why I’m calling it a negotiation at all – the buyer demanded a 21% price reduction if we wanted to keep the business and that was that."

2004 - Farmers take Tesco to task over 'ruthless' pricing - https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...sco-to-task-over-ruthless-pricing-732745.html

2009 -Ireland-Farmers complaining over supermarkets profits - https://www.farminguk.com/news/ireland-farmers-complaining-over-supermarkets-profits-_15413.html

2011 - British farmers forced to pay the cost of supermarket price wars - https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2011/jul/02/british-farmers-supermarket-price-wars

2012 -Supermarket price negotiations – they work both ways - https://www.fwi.co.uk/farm-life/supermarket-price-negotiations-they-work-both-ways

2016 - Pig farmers are 'more vulnerable to unfair treatment by supermarkets' as prices fall - https://www.farminguk.com/news/pig-...ent-by-supermarkets-as-prices-fall_38478.html

2022 - Food prices: Why farmers get the smallest share and how to change it - https://www.fwi.co.uk/business/food-prices-why-farmers-get-the-smallest-share-and-how-to-change-it -

2024 - Supermarkets under fire for squeezing farmers in supply chain - https://www.somersetlive.co.uk/news/somerset-news/supermarkets-under-fire-squeezing-farmers-9055436
 
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Bozza

You can change this
Helpful Moderator
Jul 4, 2003
57,289
Back in Sussex
Anyway, this is all a big positive for Labour.

As the cold weather sets in, it will help keep focus away from all the pensioners who will be freezing due to the cruel, callous and dangerous government targeting of some of society's most vulnerable.
 


Harry Wilson's tackle

Harry Wilson's Tackle
NSC Patron
Oct 8, 2003
56,119
Faversham
I couldn't agree more (sadly).

Better education on food would be a start.

Actually, make that:
Better education on food would be a start.

My great hope for politics is that a party will emerge that champions education above all else (and properly). Give future generations a proper start in life with great education for everyone - the economy would be more productive and the state will spend less on everything from the NHS to policing/criminal justice and the welfare state.

Everything else is a sticking plaster - we need to plough money into education and everything else will take care of itself.

(Yes, I'm a dreamer - a policy that would take 20 years to bear fruit isn't getting a party elected any time soon)
But you're not the only one.

(Apologies. Couldn't resist.
On a serious note, there is education and there is "indoctrination". Not so longer ago telling schoolkids that gay people are equal was not just indoctrination, but illegal as it 'promoted' homosexuality. It would be good if "citizenship" were on the school curriculum, with passing with a specified score being necessary to earn the right to vote. And they said that you're a dreamer.....)
 




Harry Wilson's tackle

Harry Wilson's Tackle
NSC Patron
Oct 8, 2003
56,119
Faversham
Anyway, this is all a big positive for Labour.

As the cold weather sets in, it will help keep focus away from all the pensioners who will be freezing due to the cruel, callous and dangerous government targeting of some of society's most vulnerable.
I'm feeling chilly already. Brrrrr. BRRRRRR! Brrrr.
 


Springal

Well-known member
Feb 12, 2005
24,785
GOSBTS


zefarelly

Well-known member
NSC Patron
Jul 7, 2003
22,787
Sussex, by the sea
I am not entirely familiar with the workings of the free market economy but if it is cheaper for supermarkets to fly in food from Chile then does it not mean that the local farms are not economical?

(I presume you have in mind that multinational supermarkets tell farmers what they are prepared to pay and farmers have to lump it.)

I'll have to try that myself when I go shopping - tell the seller what I am prepared tp pay. I may have a go at that on Amazon later.

(Something doesn't add up here.....you make it sound like the relationship between farmers and their customers is some sort of apocylaptic 1984 style commercial dictatorship. Perhaps it is. If so, propping this system up by giving farmers unfair tax breaks does not seem appropriate.).
At a garden centre earlier this year, in Sussex, there was a big Fruit n veg stall outside, oh great I thought . . . Some local produce . . . I bought a few bits, clearly being so early in the season not all was loal, soft fruit for example . . .but I hoped the root vag was as we're between allotments and had little of our own this year . . . . I also grabbed a net bag of garlic, assuming it was from Spain/Italy most likely, looked plump. . . . . When I got home I read the label . . . China . . . . Garlic from China. that really is madness, I felt really bad for not having checked, and the garlic was absolutely shit.

I agree with MJ's ghost, and many others, education is the key . . . . Capitalism keeps it for the elite with good reason. Idiots are easily manipulated and most of us are. .

as for the economics of the farms . . . They've voted to shoot themselves in the foot, taken all the subsidies and do whatevers most profitable . . . They don't give a f*** about what we want or need. They're a business just like any other. But an asset rich business thats sheltered to protect the establishment.
 


Harry Wilson's tackle

Harry Wilson's Tackle
NSC Patron
Oct 8, 2003
56,119
Faversham
Are you being serious?

Supermarket buying practices has been a talking point for years, likely decades.

From a 5-minute search, I found the following articles, and this sample paragaph is typical of a story I've heard countless times:

"The week began with a price negotiation with a very large supermarket over one of the products that we supply to them. I say “negotiation”; strictly speaking we had already agreed the price once, they wanted it lower still. In fact, I don’t know why I’m calling it a negotiation at all – the buyer demanded a 21% price reduction if we wanted to keep the business and that was that."

2004 - Farmers take Tesco to task over 'ruthless' pricing - https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...sco-to-task-over-ruthless-pricing-732745.html

2009 -Ireland-Farmers complaining over supermarkets profits - https://www.farminguk.com/news/ireland-farmers-complaining-over-supermarkets-profits-_15413.html

2011 - British farmers forced to pay the cost of supermarket price wars - https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2011/jul/02/british-farmers-supermarket-price-wars

2012 -Supermarket price negotiations – they work both ways - https://www.fwi.co.uk/farm-life/supermarket-price-negotiations-they-work-both-ways

2016 - Pig farmers are 'more vulnerable to unfair treatment by supermarkets' as prices fall - https://www.farminguk.com/news/pig-...ent-by-supermarkets-as-prices-fall_38478.html

2022 - Food prices: Why farmers get the smallest share and how to change it - https://www.fwi.co.uk/business/food-prices-why-farmers-get-the-smallest-share-and-how-to-change-it -

2024 - Supermarkets under fire for squeezing farmers in supply chain - https://www.somersetlive.co.uk/news/somerset-news/supermarkets-under-fire-squeezing-farmers-9055436
I think you have proven @Herr Tubthumper 's point. This (hardball from supermarkets) has indeed been going on for decades, but it is only now that Labour are in charge that the farmers have mobilized in their hundreds of thousands in London to demand action.
 




dsr-burnley

Well-known member
Aug 15, 2014
2,625


Proper farmers

And presumably it would be the same if he was protesting about the loss of winter fuel allowance for the poorest pensioners? To be told to butt out, nowt to do with him?

It's the same attitude from the government re. the farmers as it is with the pensioners. The focus is on how to stop Branson or Lloyd Webber getting any benefit, and if that means other people suffer, so what.

Farmers won't actually suffer financially. They will be forced to sell their land, possibly for building, possibly for solar farms, possibly to multinational conglomerates who don't pay IHT. And, as the government will no doubt say, what reason have we to grow food anyway?
 


drew

Drew
NSC Patron
Oct 3, 2006
23,614
Burgess Hill
Worth listening to Guy Singh-Watson (Riverford Organics) on this subject. He was interviewed on World at One today (starts at 18:23). Also summarised in his article in this week's vegbox.

View attachment 192631

He recommends increasing the IHT threshold to £7m (& tax rate to 40%) and removing the CGT loophole that allows rural landowners to buy more agricultural land free of tax when they sell some for development.
He claims farms under 100 acres are not viable yet half of all farms in uk are under 20 hectares (about 50 acres).

 


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