Generals know that their army walks on its stomach. Civil contingency and emergency planners know that a population is only three days from food scarcity to riots and breakdowns.
That’s why, since the Second World War, we’ve paid British farmers to farm. At first, it was about national security, growing enough food after years of rationing. Then, under the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy, we paid farmers based on how much land they owned or, at times, how much livestock or crops they produced.
The system was bureaucratic, led to butter mountains, and the rules had to be the same for subsistence farmers in Poland as for large estates in England. There were always winners and losers, often it favoured the largest landowners rather than family farms nestled in the uplands.
After leaving the EU, we had a once-in-a-generation chance to do things differently. To support British farmers in a British way. The Environmental Land Management (ELM) scheme was far from perfect, but it was progress. For the first time, it paid farmers not just for owning land, but for doing things that benefit the whole country: restoring hedgerows, protecting soil health, improving animal welfare, and producing food sustainably.
Labour's double betrayal of farmers like me is setting the nation up for starvation - James Wright
Getty Images
Farmers like me worked with DEFRA to develop it, and we believed in it. We could look after our cattle, plant herbal leys, manage water more efficiently, and produce food at the same time! This led to the Conservative government creating the Farming Investment Fund, with hundreds of millions to help improve productivity and animal welfare on-farm.
In the run-up to the general election, Labour promised a new deal for the countryside. Starmer gave speeches and wrote articles, committing to supporting farmers.
When they won that election, though they first introduced the family farm tax, stealing our future, and in March, without warning, the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI), the core of the new scheme, was stopped. No notice, just a press release. It took the threat of legal action from the National Farmers Union to get them to U-turn and allow submitted applications to progress.
Now, just weeks later, we learn that the Chancellor is preparing to slash the entire scheme in the upcoming spending review. Years of policy development, based on public goods, food security, and productivity torn up.
This isn’t just bad for family farmers. It’s a betrayal of the public, too.
City Steve, Labour’s Croydon-based Farming and Environment Minister, says that we need to increase farms’ profitability, and that’s why the family farm tax is a problem, that once profitability is fixed, it’ll all be fine.
Why, then, cut the funding that supports farmers and protects the environment? Even the RSPB thinks it’s mad: “Cutting the nature-friendly farming budget would have a catastrophic impact on the UK’s ability to tackle the nature and climate crisis, and undermine our long-term food security.”
Labour promised a “new deal for the countryside”. It’s beginning to look like the same old disdain rural communities have faced for decades, viewed as quaint backdrops, not a patchwork of family farms working to feed the nation.
The answer is not a return to the old EU-style subsidies, like Reform and the Liberal Democrats want, handing out cheques based on land area alone. That model rewarded the richest and left smaller, family-run farms behind.
We need something better, a system that delivers real value for taxpayers, rewards farmers for producing food and looking after the land, and secures our food supply for the long term. You know, something like the Environmental Land Management Scheme.
Labour has a choice: take defence of the country seriously, or be remembered as the government that turned its back on Britain’s farmers and set the nation up for starvation.
More From GB News
Most Read
