She said the sector had faced a sharp rise in costs and increasingly extreme weather, with severe drought this year.<\/p>\n
Uncertainty surrounding the closure of applications to the sustainable farming incentive scheme – the post-Brexit agricultural payments scheme – and proposed changes to inheritance tax had created “significant” ongoing concern, with some farmers “questioning viability let alone profitability”.<\/p>\n
In the review, she said: “The farming sector is bewildered and frightened of what might lie ahead.”<\/p>\n
The report added that costs would be 30% higher in 2026 than they were in 2020, while the \u00a32.4bn farming budget for England had been almost the same since 2007 – even as farmers and growers are asked to do more to comply with environmental legislation, with less funding and no certainty.<\/p>\n
Baroness Batters added: “Farmers don’t want handouts from the state, they want nothing more than to run thriving, profitable farming businesses, by earning a fair return for what they produce.”<\/p>\n
The NFU said it was “a thorough and complex report” which was “right to recognise reform is needed”.<\/p>\n
President Tom Bradshaw said that of the issues raised, fairness in the supply chain was a “top priority” alongside planning reforms and focus on growing exports.<\/p>\n
“But alongside this, there are other immediate actions that are needed to boost British farming like providing much-needed clarity and certainty on the future of the sustainable farming incentive and doing the right thing on the pernicious inheritance tax changes,” he added.<\/p>\n
Gavin Lane, president of the Country Land and Business Association, which represents rural businesses and landowners, welcomed the review and said it was now time for “urgent action”.<\/p>\n
“As this report highlights, profitability across the sector is perilously slim, with farmers battling high input costs, low commodity prices and volatile weather conditions.<\/p>\n
“Many farm businesses are marginal or loss-making, yet will soon be hit with unaffordable inheritance tax bills, which in many cases will dwarf their annual profit,” he explained.<\/p>\n
In response to the review, the government said it was also taking action on planning reform to make food production a clearer priority, speed up on-farm reservoirs, polytunnels and farm shops, and make it easier for farmers to invest.<\/p>\n
The government is also stepping up action on supply chain fairness, tackling barriers to private finance and supporting exports and new markets, a spokesman for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"She said the sector had faced a sharp rise in costs and increasingly extreme weather, with severe drought…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":640391,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[13,12,14],"class_list":{"0":"post-640390","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-stories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115741077296658572","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/640390","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=640390"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/640390\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/640391"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=640390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=640390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=640390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}