Biting The Hand That Feeds You
Food Security in an Increasingly Insecure World
I was very impressed to hear Nick Robinson and Amol Rajan’s interview with James Rebanks on The Today Podcast last week. I thought the framing of the inheritance tax changes in the recent budget really brought into sharp focus the challenges that family farms are facing.
In the line of work that we do at Hoole Food Market, we see first hand the huge investments of time and money that our Farmers make.
For anyone unfamiliar with James Rebanks, I’d highly recommend reading his books.
I firmly believe that we as a population in the UK would have a far better understanding of where our food comes from if English Pastoral was included in The National Curriculum.
Unfortunately, Rachel Reeves and Keir Starmer’s Labour Party appear to be completely detached from the realities of rural agricultural businesses, and James, Nick and Amol really managed to highlight this.The average net profit for a Farm in the UK is just 0.5%, so although the land value as an asset is extremely valuable, the returns from it are not. In sharp contrast to this, Bridget Phillipson has been in the media today talking tough about the profits made in the Children’s Social Care sector. Private Equity firms have been making net profits of 28% from exploiting the funding for the care of vulnerable young people. Neither of these examples are acceptable.
I know of a small family farm which makes losses every year. The consensus of the family is that, providing they don’t lose more than £6000 annually, they’ll continue doing what they do for the love of it. But this just goes to show that there’s a bigger issue which needs to be tackled by our law makers.
Most Farmers who are protesting in London today are doing so not solely due to the inheritance tax changes in the budget. But because this is the final straw in a long line of blows they’ve taken from successive UK Governments.
We work with lots of people who produce food, all of whom work really hard to run their businesses.
But the ones I have most respect for are the small family farms. These people don’t retire! They work all hours, in all weather, every day of the year for a very small profit margin.
One million pounds of farm equipment, machinery and land really doesn’t amount to much, especially when it’s not only the family business, but also the family home. Therefore, in order to raise the funds to pay an inheritance tax bill on a small family farm, the beneficiaries would be left with no choice but to sell the assets, which then renders the business unworkable. Most people who are lucky enough to own their own home would be cash rich if they sold their bricks and mortar asset. But most people’s businesses are not based where they reside.
I happened to read Will Hutton’s piece over the weekend in The Observer. I’ve always had a lot of admiration for Will’s outlook and the points he makes. However in this piece, the points he made were woefully ill informed. Starting with the title: “Farmers have hoarded land for too long…”.
I really take issue with Will’s use of the word “hoarded”. The definition of the word being: “To accumulate (money or valued objects) and hide or store away.” I don’t know of any Farmers who are hoarding their land. With such wafer thin profit margins, they really have to ensure every part of their land is productive.
Of course that isn’t to say that there aren’t people and companies who are hoarding land. James Dyson, whose views have rarely aligned with my own has done so. But even in his case, James has been progressively innovating practices to modernise farming.
With a heavily protectionist agenda being pushed by President Elect Trump in America, as well as the insecurities of unpredictable powers like Putin’s Russia, it is of vital importance we retain sustainable sources of food production in this country. It was after all Clement Attlee’s government who introduced The Agriculture Act in 1947. This after the both World Wars, rationing and a realisation that we should never be in a situation where we can’t provide much of what we need for ourselves. Let’s make sure we don’t find ourselves in that situation again.
If Keir Starmer really wants to influence the direction of this country, his government should start with root and branch reform of our food system. Perhaps by dusting off The National Food Strategy which was formulated by Henry Dimbleby, then unceremoniously ditched by the last Conservative government.
The changes in the budget really need to be heavily adjusted if we are to keep a sustainable source of food, produced by people who care not just for their own land, but also much of the rural landscape.
Food is what sustains life, inheritance tax on those who produce it does not.
Thanks for reading.
Jason
