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It’s hard to forget the time five years ago: the UK had just gone into the first lockdown, we queued outside shops, and once inside we found not just the shelves with toilet rolls empty – to get hold of fresh fruit and veg, milk, meat or flour (remember the sour dough craze?) was like a lottery win. While city folk got frustrated, farmers stepped up: they started box schemes and vastly increased the numbers of existing ones, they organised delivery points and drive-through pick-up lines, they entertained us with live cams from the lambing shed, published blogs and helped novice cooks to deal with fresh produce. Suddenly, we connected with the farmers who produce our food, and efforts to build a resilient, sustainable, local food system seemed to gain momentum. Such were the moments of optimism in the middle of a global pandemic.

Five years on….

… all of us, UK farmers and consumers, are in a very different place.

The cost of living crisis has shoppers seek out the cheapest food. Over Christmas we saw supermarkets compete over the lowest vegetable prices, parsnips, potatoes, carrots, and sprouts went for way less than the cost of production. British lamb and beef is too expensive? Frozen meat from Australia will do just fine.

For UK farmers, margins have been shrinking while costs steadily increased: the war against the Ukraine was a major factor in higher energy and fertiliser prices. Since 2020, farmers continued to deal with TB in dairy herds, with avian flu and lately outbreaks of Bluetongue.

The climate crisis continues to make farming increasingly difficult. The 18 months period from October 2023 to March 2024 was the wettest on record, September 2024 saw the most rainfall since 1918, and the last winter, again, was wet. For long periods fields were waterlogged, winter crops never made it out of the ground. Because of adverse weather, the lambing and calving seasons particularly in the north of England were among the worst ever. With delayed grass growth animals had to stay in barns for longer, which meant higher feed costs.

Fruit and vegetable growers struggled with labour shortages due to Brexit, and increasing costs due to an increased minimum wage. And that was before…

… the 2024 autumn budget

Not only did the chancellor introduce a 20% inheritance tax on farms, she also announced that direct payments would be phased out earlier than previously scheduled.

A quick recap: until Britain left the EU, farmers received considerable subsidies via the EU. For upland and hill farms such ‘direct payments’ could amount from 60% to over 90% of farm income. The British government decided to continue the payments to farmers in England after Brexit for one year – before phasing it out. (The devolved governments of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland devise their own programmes). In England, subsidies would subsequently be paid through the Environmental Land Management Scheme, ELMS, providing ‘public money for goods’. The Sustainable Farming Initiative, SFI, is part of ELMS and was launched in 2022. A 150 page handbook spelt out the requirements and payment structures for a whole host of different options. For a variety of reasons farmers were reluctant to sign up: pay-outs were low, the scheme was changed multiple times. Some farmers couldn’t join because they had committed to pre-Brexit programmes such as the Higher Tier Countryside Stewardship scheme, and tenant farmers were either not eligible at all, or needed the permission of the landlord.

Who will produce our food?

Enrolments picked up after the autumn budget – when on March 11th, totally out of the blue and without warning, DEFRA closed SFI for new entrants. SFI is to undergo a reset, details will be announced in summer, but the scheme won’t reopen until next year.

Farmers are in shock and disbelief. CLA, the Country Land and Business Association, called the SFI closure the “cruellest betrayal” by the government. NFU president Tom Bradshaw spoke of “another shattering blow to English farms”. With direct payments ending and no options to join SFI, thousands of farms face financial ruin. Hill and upland farms have few options but to raise cattle and sheep. Diversifying a farm business needs money, which they don’t have. And in any case: how many holiday lets, glamping sites or conference facilities does an area need? Many arable farmers will have no option but to farm ‘fence post to fence post’ and maximise yields – with no consideration for the environment.

The sudden closure of SFI comes after the introduction of the 20% inheritance tax. According to a study by finance and mortgage advisory firm Ashbridge Partners, the planned inheritance tax is likely to cause four in ten farms in England to go out of business by 2030 because they will no longer be financially viable.

The UK’s food security is already at risk. “To safeguard our future, we must prioritise resilience at every level – from local communities to national frameworks,” says Tim Lang, emeritus professor of food policy at City St George’s, University of London, and author of a recent study on food security in Britain. “From floods in key farming regions to disruptions in global trade, we are facing a confluence of threats that could undermine our ability to feed ourselves,” said Lord Toby Harris, the chair of the National Preparedness Commission. “Food security is a cornerstone of national resilience”. But will there be enough farms left to grow our food?

Heartbreak and misery

Large corporate farms may continue to operate by doing what the government suggests: invest in technology – from robots to more sophisticated machines to gene edited seeds.

Small, diverse family farms, the ones advertisers love to show on posters and packings, have none of these options. Like Clover and Boxer in Orwell’s Animal Farm they try to cope by working even harder. But self-exploitation is an unsustainable farming practice. Already many farm families are not able to afford the food they grow. The constant worry over bills to be paid at the end of the months and, at the back of everyone’s mind, the threat of losing the farm, being the last of many generations of farmers on their land – it’s a situation that causes a degree of emotional stress, despair and misery that amounts to a rural mental health crisis.

If we want food production in the UK to continue, farmers either need to be paid fairly and reliably (cost of production plus a margin) for what they produce – or food production must be subsidised.

By buying directly, consumers can support individual farm businesses. But this is a crisis that needs nation wide solutions. Maybe a British version of the Farm Aid concerts started during the 1980s US farm crisis by Willie Nelson, John Mellencamp and Neil Young might be a first step to at least raise broader awareness.

 

Photo copyright: @M.Kunz

Marianne Landzettel is a journalist writing and blogging about food, farming and agricultural policies in the UK, the US, continental Europe and South Asia. She worked for the BBC World Service and German Public Radio for close to 30 years. Follow her on X at @M_Landzettel and m.landzettel on Instagram