Farmers need to produce food

Politicians seem to think the countryside is for anything but food production, says Fen Tiger

The Labour government’s attack on farmers is often assumed to be a class war being waged against wicked wealthy landowners – and I think I know why.

This belief persists despite the fact most working farmers rack up long hours producing food for the country and many of us make a loss doing so.

Yet at the same time the government still seems to want to stop us doing our job.

Rapid change

It seems the government would prefer farms are used to produce fuel or energy than food. Plans to make the UK fossil-fuel free by 2035 mean the British countryside is changing rapidly – with a rush to cover it in solar panels.

It is a message time and time again repeated by this government to make us a clean energy superpower. In other words, farming as we know it today is dirty – which is why the chancellor is pushing ahead with a carbon tax on products such as fertiliser from 2027.

I have nothing against solar panels – but in the right places and at the right scale. The solar farms being constructed now are bigger and bigger.

These solar monstrosities are covering the landscape and mean we are producing less food. Yet the population is growing and people will not eat less food anyway.

So it just means more food will have to be imported from countries that have lower food standards – undercutting hard-working growers and livestock producers here.

Guaranteed income

With such unfair competition, it’s no wonder that some landowners are taking the easier route and turning their land over to renewable energy – de-risking their businesses and taking a guaranteed area-based payment for years to come.

When Keir Starmer addressed the NFU conference back in 2023, he told delegates he understood farming – and emphasised that losing a farm was not like losing a business because it cannot come back. But solar farms are not temporary structures.

It is estimated to take 2000 acres of solar panels to produce enough power for 50,000 homes. That’s a far bigger area than one nuclear power station – a controversial form of power which is not being pushed by the government because it does not have “renewable” label.

Locally, the countryside has become a battlefield with local councils listening to local people and turning down largescale solar farms – only to lose out on appeal or because the government overturns the local council’s decision.

Tax changes

Historically, landowners have been unwilling or reluctant to grant a lease for renewable development simply because the land is deemed to have been potentially transferred out of an agricultural holding and therefore losing out on any inheritance tax reliefs.

But with changes now to inheritance tax, farmers are looking at these alternative forms of income to secure loss of income. Labour would of course support this move – especially as they seem to want lots more houses built outside agreed building lines.

It may appear on the surface that the alternative use of land would be welcome for all farmers. But with an ever-increasing population to feed, it will have to be produced on less land leaving us more reliant again on food imports.

Farms are not necessarily things of beauty but the idea of turning large areas over to ugly grey structures does not fit in with local people’s ideas of the countryside.

It is certainly Labour’s idea. I wonder why we taken in by pre-election promises to protect farms and food security?