Labour hopes ‘new deal for farmers’ can reset relationship with industry
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Steve Reed to announce focus on making farming ‘more profitable and sustainable’ at Oxford Farming Conference. The government is aiming to reset its relationship with farmers with what it describes as a “new deal” for the industry. Farmers have protested in their tens of thousands after controversial changes were made to agricultural inheritance tax and the EU-derived subsidy scheme.
At the Oxford Farming Conference on Thursday, the environment secretary will announce his “new deal for farmers”. The Guardian understands this will be focused on “making farm businesses more profitable and sustainable”. Steve Reed says he hopes to ensure farmers are paid more fairly for their produce, making them less reliant on subsidies. While the UK was in the EU, farmers were paid a flat rate for each acre they farmed under the common agricultural policy, which was designed to keep farmers on the land and maintain low food prices.
Now, the English government has redesigned these schemes and is phasing out these flat payment rates in favour of paying farmers for restoring and protecting nature. The devolved governments have their own subsidy schemes. The current farming payments allocation for England is £5bn over two years, though the recent budget said the farming schemes would be reviewed from 2025-26.
Research has found farmers get just 1p for every loaf of bread or block of cheese sold. However, it will be difficult to fix this problem without causing food prices to rise, or using unprecedented government legislation to interfere in supply chains and supermarket business practices. Some argue UK consumers pay too little for food; the US, Singapore and Ireland are the only countries where consumers spend less of their income on food than the UK.
