Environment Secretary Steve Reed said “It’s only right to ask the very wealthiest farmers and those wealthy individuals who have been buying up agricultural land to avoid their own inheritance tax liability, to pay their fair share”.
He added that the government was committed to investing £5bn in sustainable farming over the next two years and said farms will be passed on from generation to generation.
Student Alaw Jones, who is planning on joining the rally, is the ninth generation of her family to farm livestock in west Wales, said her parents had always planned to hand down the business to her and her sister but now “all the work they have done to build the business and get this farm to stand on its own just feels like it’s for nothing.”
She added: “Mental health is a massive issue in the agricultural industry and this feels like the final nail in the coffin for those farmers who are already struggling.”
Rupert Dale’s family run a hay farm on the Worcestershire/Shropshire border supplying livestock farmers across the country.
He said the family now fear they will have to sell up, explaining: “Me and my brother would have to pay an immense sum for our farm to carry on and that’s a sum that we spoke about together as a family that we would not be able to finance and afford.”
Students’ Union president Alexandra Godfrey said: “I think this is one of the most pressing challenges in the farming sector and we all need to rally together to tell the government how we feel. If not now, when?”
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