ANGRY farmers joined a tractor protest rally in Tavistock today (Thursday) as a farming minister met Dartmoor farmers.
The farmers flooded the road outside the Bedford Hotel with tractors and their trucks and chanted their demands for inheritance tax on farms to be abolished and for the environmental subsidy (sustainable farming initiative – SFI) to be reinstated.
The object of their protest which included hooting their vehicle horns and chanting their demands was farming minister Daniel Zeichner. The famers’ action was accompanied by placards saying Beep if You Eat and encouraged many passing drivers to sound their horns. Other placards said ‘No Farms, No Food, No Future’, ‘Make Agriculture Great Again’ and ‘It’s a Land Grab’.
John Hillson, Bere Alston beef farmer, joined the around 50 colleagues on the action.
He said: “The Prime Minister Keir Starmer is effectively cutting our throats as farmers. We are part of the fabric of the countryside. His policies are likely to force us out of business and off our land. Once we are gone how is the country going to afford to feed its people. We can’t afford to import all our food.
“We’ve just had the sustainable faming initiative cut without enough notice to make any mitigation or anything in its place. We are only keeping our heads above water now after that cut because prices are high enough. But prices are fickle and could fall at any time.”
Tom Trueman, a farmer of Buckfastleigh is a spokesman for Farmers to Action – a group which aims to speak up for farmers on current issues.
He said: “We want the agricultural inheritance tax abolished which could ultimately lead to farmers going out of business because they cannot afford to pay the extra tax, even over ten years.
“We are very worried about the prospect of a land grab from farmers by the Government because of their housing targets which could lead to compulsory purchase for housing.
“As farmers we don’t want subsidies paid to us for not growing food – such as the sustainable farming initiative. That does have its place – to help the environment and helping farmers if they have very little income or profit. But does not benefit the public or the ability of the country to be self-sufficient in food.”
Farming contractor Ben said: “We need a replacement for the SFI urgently because farmers have made improvements based on the promise of support for limiting their cropping and restricting their grazing – all to benefit the environment.
“So, they won’t get the subsidy for this work, which is ongoing, because the SFI was cut with little warning. And they have committed to not producing crops for food and grazing, so they are not generating as much income as they could do. It doesn’t make any sense economically or to the idea of us being sustainable in food production.”
Ben said the Dartmoor tenant farmers were being told about new plans. “They don’t understand that Dartmoor is how it is today because of farmers and any changes must be very carefully done.”
The meeting in the hotel was the second annual forum convened by Tavistock MP Sir Geoffrey Cox to bring together Dartmoor farmers with representatives of Natural England and the NFU.
