We need to grow more food and stand up for the farmers

By johnredwood on November 18, 2024

Brexit is a huge opportunity for farming in the U.K. We are out of the Common Agricultural Policy which directed too much subsidy to the largest and more profitable farms. It damaged our dairy industry by not allocating us enough milk quota, and our beef industry by too prolonged a response to BSE. It led to a big decline in the proportion of home produced food during our membership. They paid grants to remove our orchards.

On exit government promised farmers the same level of subsidy out of the EU as in it, with a planned redistribution away from the large corn estates. Unfortunately the government decided to allocate much of the money via the ELMs scheme, rewarding not growing food rather than growing it. Large estates could turn over more land for wilding and take the cash. Many family working farms wanting to maximise food output did not qualify or did not bother to apply for grants.

I and a few other MPs lobbied strenuously for grants ,subsidies and affordable finance to promote more and more productive food production instead of ELMs. Some schemes were introduced but the sums remained small compared to the environmental grants.

The latest government attack on family farms with their ill thought through IHT proposals has understandably raised the opposition of the farmers. Family farms may well have to be broken up or sold to richer larger landowners and companies to pay the death taxes.

We need policies to promote the retention of family farms and to encourage more investment in food growing. Why do government want us to import much of our food as well as much of our energy and manufactured goods? When will they support growers and makers so we can earn a living as a nation and increase our national resilience?