Hello, I'm Charles Mallett with Auk column interview and today I'm joined by Alan Hughes who is a farmer. Alan, a very warm welcome to UK column. Thank you for taking some time out of your day to join me. Thank you for having me. Not at all. Now, Alan, timing is everything and when we arranged to speak, it was because you were representing Farmers to Action. Now the situation has changed somewhat in the last day in that Farmers to Action has disbanded or at least announced that it's
disbanded. But so we'll use that as a as a vehicle to, you know, be able to articulate exactly what has gone on. But let's just go back one what was farmers to action and how how was it that you became involved? Farmers to Action was set up as a farm network to allow farmers to protest and get their voices heard about IHT and the difficulties of making a profit from food production to the public.
And how the supermarkets and large corporations make vast amounts of profits off up as farmers and charge the public far too much for food while we struggle to survive and you struggle to pay for it. Very succinct. It sounds almost like you've rehearsed that, but that's absolutely to the point, which is perfect. Now how, how is it that you had become involved and had taken on the role that you had? I'm not actually quite sure what
that role was. Perhaps you could just talk a little bit about how you were sort of making it work. Well I started by when IHT came out and there was a protest in London done by Ollie Blocks and several farmers. I can get to London. So to support it I wanted a local protest in our area, Shropshire.
So I organised the farmers to Go slow protest from the livestock market and from there several other people done the same thing and they said really we ought to be getting this more joined up so it's easy to go. And from their role too for helping to organise action across the whole of the UK as well as the Liverpool protests. And I went to several of the conferences to make sure farmers views and points are heard on better agricultural policy, fairer prices for farmers and
fairer prices for the public. I was helping coordinate that. And he has also never took on the responsibility of a director. We've closed that down due to escalating farmer tensions and some farmers talking about doing things that I couldn't support as a limited company.
And I said it's safer to dissolve it and then individuals can do what they like off their own back and not use our logo or pieces to be implemented in it. OK, we'll look, we'll get into into the detail in a non hopefully sort of not too intrusive a fashion in in due course.
But I think you've sort of got to the heart of the matter, which is that there has been a great deal of focus on inheritance tax, or at least the announcement by the the the Chancellor, Rachel Reeves and the proposed plan for the changes to inheritance tax, or at least as expressed by agricultural property relief will will come to that in
specific detail. But you talk about the idea that that a campaign should be conducted not just in one place, but you know, you're, you're in Shropshire and you know, there is obviously a focus on London because of the Westminster government being in London. But just talk to me a bit about how this does work in terms of a network as such and how there has been a degree of coordination through regions and how exactly does that work and what are what are the
difficulties associated with it? Well, the main difficulty is every farmer is their own boss and it's very difficult to get them to agree on what actions they afford. And if they don't agree, they'll go off and do things anyway, which can have repercussions for those who haven't planned it. So we've set up county groups. There's many other protest groups around the country for different areas, but most work on a county by county basis and they can put through this is
what we're thinking of doing. What do you think? What's this date work for you? And then you will try and get it on the same sort of date. So it's not just one place at a time, which isn't really a story, but all over the country and in London if needed or not. Because yes, the government is in London, but there's protests in London every single day and you see nothing of it on the news and the MPs are deaf to it.
But when it's on their own doorstep where people are voting for them, they actually start to listen because the last thing they want is that the next set of election for their voters or constituents go, I'm not paying for you because look what happened here, you're not helping these people and it's affecting us locally. Look how many of us have come to come to show our support and want change.
That then makes the individual MPs sit up, listen and have discussions and then it gets fed to government rather than just ignored because of what's going on outside the Houses of Parliament. OK, that's a very good point. And I would hazard a guess that everybody watching and listening will be able to think of countless examples of protests or indeed anything else being ignored by central government.
Are you able to point to any specific examples of a success or a qualified success in response to some action that has been conducted locally in in your area? Almost all of our farmers by areas have been invited to meetings with their local MPs. Had local MPs come to their farms as direct result. Open dialogue. Multiple emails to and back and forth. Opening dialogue. Invites to policy meetings. Invites to Liberal Derekat conference invites.
The Reform conference allowed into the Conservative conference. The only one we weren't allowed into was Labour conference but we have had many backbenchers privately staking their concerns at what's going on and that they are not in support of what is happening and that is swells rumours. I expect around this the bit destabilised situation in Parliament at the moment. So I'd say there's many successes and far too numerous to count. OK, so the on the engagement
front, absolutely positive. I, I absolutely recognize. Now I'm going to ask you a question that you might consider slightly facetious, but it's not intended to be so at all. I think it's really important place to start because agriculture as we might consider it and everybody of course has their own perspective on exactly what that means has changed a huge amount over the last, let's say 200 years in particular.
What in in your mind, and indeed in the way that Farmers to Action and perhaps other groups are sort of coordinated and focusing, what is the role of a farmer in the United Kingdom in 2025? Well, we're custodians of the land. Some own it, some, like myself, rent it. It's our job to make sure it is maintained a good habitat and make sure it is left in a better state than which we should have received it, and to provide food which is nutritious, sustainable and healthy for the general
public. Problem we've got is government policies such as additives to milk, which I won't name, are against this. Some environmental policies do not understand the environment or the countryside. Rewilding by removing livestock completely leaves. It goes wild, it's no longer eaten by livestock, so it sets a
fire. If it doesn't set a fire, the small wildflowers and habitats are destroyed by being smothered by vegetation or eating, and there's no manure from the livestock to fertilize it. So rewilding is not environmentally friendly, management of the land is, which we've done for hundreds if not thousands of years and should be left to be planned and organised by farmers, not by people in offices which have never worked a day in their life in their
industry. Not not just in farmers case, it's in fisheries cases and almost all other land based industries. OK, OK, Yeah, that that's fantastic. And I think that's a, that's a great start point. The, the immediate difficulty with setting out those conditions, as it were, is that the situation at the, at the current moment is that the vast majority of people who do have agricultural holdings are dependent in some way on receipt of some sort of government
subsidy. And therefore, if the government are going to make such and such a payment, it is up to them as to what the terms of that agreement are. Or at least that's the way that it's being set out. So for, you know, rewild is rewilding is a very, very good example. What, what, what is your view? What's the, what's the sort of the view or the consensus come to be on the relationship that farmers should have with
government, if any? And and of course we, we can't ignore the the financial side of this. Well, I can only speak personally, but I think that anyone in a business that is not allowed to set their own prices. We are the only business which we are told the price received by government and by corporations due to the government's legislations and way they've set things out.
If that is the case, then whatever those figures be, it needs to be profitable, sustainable, actually provide good for the environment, not perceived on paper actual wildlife habitats and gear that you can see, which is the way people already farm. You look at mono cropping, so rewilding, focusing on what government's doing that damages the environment because they don't know what they're doing.
So if they're going to put a policy in place, it should be designed by farmers, not by people in suits which are causing more damage than they are actually fixing due to unintentional acts just through ignorance or lack of knowledge of the situation. Yeah, OK. Well, actually, funnily enough, yesterday, or at least we're recording on Friday, there was a debate in the House of Lords yesterday on what's described as biodiversity.
And you know, the sort of lamentation that since this Labour government took over, there's been a, there's been a loss of biodiversity and, and whatnot. I think unless you've really been paying attention, there has been a very, very obvious and wilful conflation of several different things. But most obviously what's being described as biodiversity and what is described as a climate emergency. Now, I I don't want to get you into too much hot water necessarily, but, but is there a
climate emergency in your view? And if so, or if not, what are the drivers of such a thing? My personal thought is there's always an emergency of some sort when anyone wants to generate more tax. Whether it was the Ice Age in the 80s, acid rain, the loss of carbon, solar energy, climate has never been fixed. It's always been fluid from the Ice Age into the 80s, heat wave in the early 20s and the fact you could walk across the channel during Roman times.
Our world is ever evolving, ever changing wherever it's due to carbon, which is a very small amount of the atmosphere, the strength of the sun, or other factors that we do not yet know or fully understand. I would be very surprised if one year is not different to the next every year. All you can do is your best effort through I'd state old fashioned methods, the proven testing methods of do the best you can, improvise, adapt and overcome.
Yeah, well, on a personal note, I think I would go along with you there, especially on the, the expectation or the absurd expectation that one year in terms of weather or climate would be identical to the one proceeding or succeeding it. The problem of course is that the way that environmental Land Management schemes are set out is that they are predicated on policy that has come from without, say for example, the
the the drive. And this was mentioned in the in the Lords yesterday, you know, the, the sustainable markets initiative with the push for 30 by 30. You know, 30% of EU KS land mass in what's called nature recovery by 20-30. the United Nations sustainable development goals in effect, a lot of policy decisions being made outside of Westminster with absolutely no input from the farming
community. And yet those are the binding factors which dictate the legislation from which the financial support to the farming industry comes. Is that a an issue that is being taken on directly with the sorts of engagements that you're talking about? It's very difficult to address situations like this when you're dealing multi million to multi billion, some cases trillion companies which are pushing an agenda.
And there is always ties if you look deeply enough between one individual and other individuals. But basically, if you follow the money, you can normally see where things are coming from in greening. Solar panels, wind turbines are big business, very big business, and they're not as green as people think. A lot of their stuff can't even be recycled. The damage from mining the components for them is arguably more detrimental than the good they receive.
But if you get to the crux, follow the money, you can see why it's pushed so hard, especially when you look at donations to different organisations, parties and individuals. Yeah, absolutely. No, Obviously the the we've, we've skirted around the issue to a certain extent. You mentioned it right at the front, inheritance tax and the change I think, I think for the in the interest of clarity, we should be quick to point out that this is a situation that changed only in 1992 with the
100% relief in the 1st place. And and also that it's not just agricultural property relief but also business property relief. Just in a nutshell, what is the issue with the proposed change from the 6th of April next year? No profitability as I stated our prices are fixed by us, the supermarkets and the governments are making record prices like never seen before while we are on the smallest margins ever. Def for his own statistics of return on investment on farming with 2023 to 23.
Four which are the latest leaks is now minus nought .8 for food production minus. That's the key point here. You look back in the 90s and the 80s there was good profit in farming. You'd have to be an idiot to lose money now. If you haven't got an Afghan degree, a full office team to fill out all the brothical red tape and rubbish forced on you, you haven't got a hope of surviving, let alone maintaining your business.
And very little chance of thriving is the money has been forced out of the job for supermarkets and its big players and leaving the farmers stranded. And the big issue we've got here because it's been done before.
We've had Labour governments before World War One and Two which destroyed the agricultural industry and then we almost started when we went to war, where arguably the most unstable time in the world's history since World War Two could easily be into difficult situation of either imports or war and they are destroying the home, food, national security. I think it's madness and immoral to be going down this current
route. And, and sorry, just to be specific, when you say the current route, you mean to change the threshold on inheritance tax? Both because threshold of inheritance tax means that the only people should be able to afford to buy businesses and farms and sold is large corporations from abroad which would not pay into the tax system anyway other than when
they paid stamp duty. So you're taking money out of GDP and the tax and increasing the burden on the general public while reducing food security and food availability. That further increases food inflation and the cost of living to the general public for no benefit to anybody bar foreign investment and shareholders. It is an incredibly dangerous and slippery slope which undermines our food security and our national national security in one fell swoop.
Yeah, And 2025, there's been an awful lot of discussion predicated on the idea of national security and exactly what that means. The security, the National Security Strategy was published this year, as was the Strategic Defense Review. Both talk about resilience via having a robust supply chain into not just food but but in
all respect. And yet the, you know, from what you're describing, there's actually very little being done in a way to affect that, certainly not via any sort of joined up initiative or indeed communication with those that are supposed to provide the food security. The other issue with food security, of course is that it's not actually enshrined in law anywhere that the government
must pursue food security. It's only referenced 3 times on the statute book and only then in passing reference to how to design an environmental Land Management scheme in that it, it may be a consideration, but it's never actually a priority. Is that intentional to your mind? Or I mean, you know, why would that be the case?
If it, if the same government is going to write documents and say we need XY and Z in order to say that we have some sense of national security and yet they don't enshrine in law anything concerning food security. What what? What is 1 to take from that? I'd say it's short sighted, or it could be construed as allowing for profiteering.
You've got to remember that some of the largest donators to these parties are corporations that own supermarkets, import and export companies and situation like that does benefit them greatly. Regardless. The fact that worldwide food production is actually being reduced due to pushing through solar panels, greening and reworlding, and almost every country in the western world is protesting against these facts in government.
Larger turnovers, smaller margin, more expensive machinery, more bureaucracy and cost, but less availability to produce food and more statements of reducing dairy and meat which means more reliance on chemical fertilizers because without those livestock you do not have the manure for the buyer to firstly to feed your crops. And that further increases the cost of production as you rely more heavily on chemical fertilizers and sprays to keep the crops.
It's very poor thinking, but what it does do is drive at corporate profits due to reliance on chemicals imports and foreign globalization. Yeah, I think that's a very good point well made. And it's something that people in, in large part probably don't fully understand, but we just just flesh that out a bit more the the input side of it.
And how, because going back to this idea of biodiversity and, and sort of in a way wanting to have it both ways, wanting to say, yes, well, we're producing XY and Z food. We're reducing the amount of land that can be used to provide food. And there's a sort of implicit expectation. That artificial inputs won't be used, but in actual fact, people are put in a very difficult position and in effect are are more or less forced to to use
such inputs. Would that would that be the way that you might put it or could you just go into a bit more detail? They're they're completely contradicting themselves. They're demanding that you don't use chemicals and fertilizers yet when you're asking for higher yields of lower acreage, there's no option but to to use those things. Now we buck the trend a bit. At home, we are rented, so we have no choice but to make sure we can cover the cost. We do not have the buffer of
land to sell if you don't. So we keep everything in house. We grow our own corn and straw to feed the livestock. It's not human grade on there. The livestock and the cattle are fed using silage corn and straw in the winter when it's too wet like now and preserve groups, but their manure fertilizes the crops, the ground, etcetera. Therefore we use only one, maybe 2 spreads of fertilizer a year and very rarely do we use any chemical at all on our crops. But that is bucking the trend.
If we did not have the livestock to feed the crops, we'd be reliant on the fertilizer, and if we didn't have the crops and straw to litter the cattle through the winter, we'd be reliant on buying that of large corporations who are using chemicals and fertilizer to survive. It also helps us wherever the current storms as arable crops are pretty much the lowest price they've ever been pushing towards the 80s on it, yet the cost of production is now well
over the cost of being paid. So it's a very strange situation we're in when you can import things from countries that you can't really prove where they've come from and not have to be done to sell welfare, health or Food Standards that we have to, as British farmers with no paperwork can freely be imported and put through the same food processes into human consumption. Whereas CAT. Yeah. OK. So a lot of contradictions there.
Let's talk about the, as you say, the idea that we should be reducing, you know, in the name of supposedly a climate emergency. Apparently somehow eating less meat and dairy and animal products is going to make a difference. It's never really been satisfactory explained how that would affect itself. But quite like you say, that means that the ground is not being fertilizers, not it's not having, you know, the the same amount of sort of carbon absorption as it as it would
have otherwise. That is a massive contradiction. But you do talk about what you're doing as as bucking A trend. Are you suggesting then that the majority of farmers are becoming more intensive and more industrialized or, or or do you mean that there is just still an an overwhelming majority of people doing it that way? Well you have two options if you wish to survive.
Farmers are going bust at record numbers and record weights, especially over the last 12 months, and suicide levels due to the pressure have never been higher before and even more so have IHT. So you have two options. You either go down the rewilding route, except you do what they want to do, whether it's damaging to your land under control and a lot of people see those numbers and haven't the
ability to do the costs. So we've worked out that if we done what was put on the paper, we'd lose more money in from than we would put if we got it in production as we are. So I'll put that in clear English. If I did what they are asking us to on the rented farm, I would
not be able to afford my rent. Whereas by doing it sustainably and smartly and watching my figures through producing very effectively, very efficiently, using crop rotations, manure, livestock, venous cycle, I can make a profit to survive. I should be able to thrive doing something like this. But finally, at the moment no one is. Everyone is suffering. Now the bigger issue is we're
input told to import food. Food produced here by grass, mostly beef, dairy, lamb and sheep is by far the best carbon efficient way of doing it in the world. It is actually, if you include photosynthesis, carbon negative. We're capturing more carbon than we're using. But they don't allow that though. Everyone who goes to school learns that that is how carbon is sequenced through photosynthesis.
So the mass used is raw. But if you're importing it instead, you're having it from other countries doing high ration feeding through arable intense systems, deforestration, the Amazon to grow soy crops to feed it and feed lots. You are fueling the damage to the environment and then to add salt or insult to injury you are shipping it to the country to eat rather than having it locally. So it's low food miles for a sustainable way.
You are actually doing better. Good to drink milk from the UK. Eat British meat van importing vegetables for from abroad to have a lower meat and dairy input diet. Your carbon footprint would be far higher importing avocados from South America and Mexico or vegetables in Spain than eating seasonal vegetables and food grown here. So I don't see the argument for improving environment by not eating meat and dairy. I see as if you want meat and dairy, eat it from here, don't import it.
OK. And then, you know, the, the, the obvious sort of follow up there as well that that's an easy win. Then, you know, the public just changed their behaviour and hey presto, everything works out. But obviously it's not that simple. The, the public do have the ability to change the situation, you know, notwithstanding the fact that we are, we absolutely
we are where we are. You're, you've talked about engagement with politicians, with other farming groups and presumably sort of across the industry to a certain extent. How do you feel the engagement with the general public? I know that's a that's a very, very broad sort of term and broad question, but how is that engagement affecting itself? Well, I think we've never had more public support than now and it is growing pretty much in the same way that the government is
getting less each day. Common sense shows that we are being steered to disaster and that we should be buying food locally that is nutritious, not imported from anywhere, using chemicals which are banned here due to being carcinogenic processes. We do not know and not know what's in there. Is a boat being unloaded at ports? I think it was last week on a video or two, covered in pigeons.
Now if you didn't, if you got anything like that on a lorry or on a British feed store, your entire load would be he condemned it. That was being unloaded and taken to a feed mill for human consumption. You can't get much more double standards really. So I think the public support is there. Yes, it helped. They changed a little bit of attitude towards seasonal eating.
But the biggest change is the supermarkets putting what they do on the shelves in the name of profit and profiteering off you and me. The average market now in the supermarket is 3 to 400%. In the 90s it was 50%. That pretty much tells you everything you need to know. They took an older margin out for themselves and squeezed us and you in the name of profit, that new sort. It does. OK, now what's the answer?
Because the Groceries Code Adjudicator is supposed to be the admittedly one man band, which seems completely extraordinary bearing in mind the scope of his sort of workflow. He is meant to be the interface in, in sense of fairness between farmers and supermarkets. Does that seem to you like a sincere effort by government to resolve problems that may arise? It's designed to fail in my opinion. It has no teeth. Not enough teeth to make any actual difference.
The fines are too small to make a supermarket consider adhering to it when they can make plenty more profit by not. We'd be better off bringing in livestock boards, dairy, meat, vegetable boards which are owning cooperatives by farmers so that they can negotiate themselves with them a fair, reasonable price like we used to in the 90s, rather than being abolished like they were in the aim of slightly more profit and then being taken over. So the farmers dictated the
price to by the supermarket. The farmer told you take it or you get nothing and go back, Brooke. OK, so, so how does this, how does this jungle get get sort of turned onto a, a different course? You know, again, we, we keep coming back to it. We are where we are. Corporate power in the food industry is absolutely monumental. Corporate influence upon government is extraordinary.
And yet the vast majority of people, even if they think that they are wanting to or actually supporting British farmers, are more than likely shopping in supermarkets where they really have no idea of the provenance of anything that they might be choosing. What's in your view or indeed across the the sort of networks, you know, in so far as farmers to action was concerned? What is the view on that?
I mean, how does one begin to make meaningful progress that has a, you know, has a benefit across the piece in terms of not just finances for the for the farmers concerned, but also for the landscape and all the other things you describe? Well, to start with you ask people to die, buy direct as much as they possibly can, whether that's from farm shops, green grocers, butchers, local markets. You actually know where the things have come from.
Not that it's just arrived in a plastic package and had a stamp put on it. That's the quickest and easiest thing you can do. There is groups out there now which shows directories of where farm shops are, farms, markets and places and helps people get involved in that.
We've pushed on councils and on policies and make it easier for farmers to get planning permission to diversify so they can do end of product sales, so they can convert some milk to cheese or end products or sell some of it direct rather than just for the process, the same butchery. But in the long term we need farm cooperatives and we're talking to farmers about it to build those cooperatives for group negotiations so that we are having the talks with the
supermarkets and processors. And when supermarkets council contract, dictate unfair terms, there's people there to help and support them rather than them just left to be. You take it and leave or you leave it. Do you want to get recoup some money and make little profit or a small loss but enable you to go again next year? Or do you want to lose the lot and be forced to sell it for livestock feed at a large loss? Especially in the case of vegetables, it's very often done on the meat side.
Again, lobbying to get better prices on the dairy side. Has the price of milk gone down now? It's gone up, yet the dairies are having monthly now price cuts per litre pretty much to the cost of production. Is that fair? And again, and against their so-called new conduct, no, it's not fair. Yes, it is against the new contact board. Is anybody doing anything about it? No. So farmers need to be acting together on group negotiations to make change, but that takes
time and cooperation. It does and, and this is what I want to get to without I, I certainly, I'm not going to ask you at all to, you know, expose any sort of personal fractiousness that may have occurred in, in groups that you've been working with. And, and in particular the, the sort of disbandment of farmers to action. But as you said yourself earlier, farmers are their own bosses. Now this for for some is well, it, it might be on the one hand enormously appealing.
Obviously with it comes a huge amount of challenge and responsibility. With that in mind, and you've just been speaking about cooperatives, this idea of cohesion and unity. Just give us an insight into how that can be achieved, given the background to it, which is that farmers are gloriously independent in some ways.
It's quite difficult. It's unbelievably difficult to do. Everybody has their own opinion and things to be done differently, so it needs to be done by majority vote and agreed upon a fair sequence of things in which you wish to do that from the start. And I think it's putting people together of like minds. There's no point having beef farmers on a dairy farm group.
You need to have dairy farmers working together to agree on what would assist them, what is a fair price, and then you vote in representatives to do your negotiation. You've got your red lines, that's what you want. And if you need to do withdrawal of product or something, then you've already got that work done in place before you start your negotiation. The green upon, not after the
fact. Same As for arable, you need arable farmers on there, people who understand the cost, the figures and the commodities market. Not just I plant here, I hope to get X amounts. You need the boys who knows the figures on there. You agree what you want, how you want it, what rules work. And you then go to the mills and the cereal agencies and get that
sorted. And on the beef, you do the same with the abattoirs, the crop growers for vegetables, you do the same, but through the grocery board. And you find a good lawyer system which is willing to go after these people when it's required rather than just hoping that the government will do it. But that's comes in time through membership and through planning and 12 months to do it. Since the IHT, yes, that has stirred farmers to want change, galvanized the site, never before to do it.
The 12 months isn't enough time to do something like that. It'll take 18 months really to get anything like that locked in. And there's certainly the room for it. You could argue it should be doing being done by existing organizations, but so far it's not being done in the money in which the grassroots farmers can feel a difference. OK. And and just so just so we understand completely what the system you're describing, is that something that would be
done geographically? Do you mean the region would have would have a sort of an ability to do that or you're talking something that's more centralized or how, how would it, how would it work? In an ideal world, you'd want it national, so you've set it out like you do Young Farmers and other organizations. You have somebody who holds your meeting in each county. Why resume or in person? You vote on your pieces and that feeds up to regional and then
national. And you write a policy and everyone votes on it. All votes for your amendments, and then you send them to negotiate for you all as a whole. That way you've got proper clout over the country rather than just one group with one lot of processes. And if they don't like it, that process will cancel milk contracts and increase the number of contracts in a different area in the country. If it's over the whole country, you've actually got a chance to affect it. OK.
And without wanting to seem overly cynical, what do you rate the chances of success on that, being able to achieve that degree of sort of cohesion and coordination? Anything is possible as they say, but it's how long is a piece of string until you're able to achieve it and. Yeah. So I suppose what I really mean is, is do you think people are sort of quite there yet? You talk about there being quite different views across the spectrum of the agricultural community at the moment.
Is there, is there a sense in your mind at least, that the situation has to get worse before it gets better? Do people have to be pushed even further in order to realize that the only way to get out of this is to? Do you know a form of what you're describing? I think it's getting pretty marks to the crux now. People are going busts and struggling to survive. Very good businesses are getting in very difficult situations.
And when you get into that and the farmers are getting as antsy as the public are and what we're seeing, I said if it's people need change and need to see things going forward in a positive manner else you're going to see chaos instead. And I. Yeah. And that's that's certainly not going to be good for for anybody. Now you've talked about the support to the public, sorry from the public so far, which has expressed itself really in several different ways.
People turning out at protest, people coming along to attend meetings that you, you, you're describing that you have been able to become involved in and, and that kind of thing. There hasn't yet been at least a demonstrable swing in buying behaviour that that would enable the sorts of changes that we're talking about. But what can the public do to assist with what it is that you're describing?
Because clearly that they are the, the key to all of this in so far as they hold the, the purse strings. I mean, the government spend our money in some respects via subsidy, but of course that is coming in the other side. I mean, you know, the, the public are going out to purchase and consume the products that British farmers are making. What, what, what more can they do in this in this sort of communication chain? Well they've done a lot already.
You've only got to remember when people are talking about Beauvier and they avoided buying it. And as a direct result last week Arlo's cancelled their tests. So as other groups cancel their tests so they are listening to if farmers say avoid this because of XYZ, avoid it. If you know there's local markets or farmers you can support, yes support them. Don't really listen to the
supermarket advertising. You've got companies I wrote names stating they back British the best and then importing Australian beef including their adverts that they are the best at backing British farmers while reduced for Christmas then reducing the price to pay them. So don't take the supermarkets
and corporations at face value. Listen to what the farmers are advising you on is my the best piece of advice is if you had it from the butcher and he's got an avatar at the back, you're pretty much certain that that beef, our lamb or pork has come from a British farm because he ain't going to be able to afford to import it from abroad. If you've had it from a supermarket counter, good luck proving where it's come from. We've saw that at Horse Gate Scandal and it's not a lot
better now. It gets brought here packaged and the stamp stuck on it. And it's very difficult to know exactly where that has come from or not. Now just to consider the the impending sort of forthcoming protests are coming up, which is really what sort of why I wanted to talk to you exactly. Now we'll, we'll come on to the specifics of that in a minute, but just a hypothetical.
Daniel Zeichner, when this was announced, said that the estimated amount to be recouped from changing the threshold on agricultural property relief was that it would raise about £500 million a year. Now to contextualize that the National Health Service spends about that much every single day. So in the grand scheme of things, the amount that the government would raise from scrapping the relief on inheritance tax at the moment
would be peanuts. But with that in mind, bearing in mind that this has become a sort of single issue campaign, if the government said right, OK, we've listened and we won't change it, what then? I think you'll continue to fight
on profitability. They've highlighted the 'cause that when farmers can't afford to pay for IHT on there, let alone cover all their costs, and there's a severe problem in farming, and they accidentally galvanized the farming community into a regeneration of They have to be able to be profitable, else there'll be nobody to farm or sustain them.
And if the government's going to keep forcing us out of business, it's time to maybe take over their jobs ourselves and do it, whether it stands for election or local councils and make change or be more active, more vocal, rather than doing what we've always done of tighten our belts, get on and do a few more hours or keep pushing yourself harder to the grindstone because we're pretty much the lowest paid industry per hour for the time we put in, for what we get back.
Like there is no other industry like it and we have the highest, well, suicide rate as a result because of the massive amount of hours you are on your own, the sheer pressure you're under and the tax and strain put on you by this government and earlier governments before them. And something has to change. It absolutely does, which which now brings us to what is going to be happening during the week commencing 24th of November described I think as a day of national unity.
Would you just talk a bit more about what that is sort of set up to be and what you what your expectations are for that week? There's multiple groups from all over the country. We've got it by county, so they'll be doing it independently by county. Still going out on the 24th, some on go slow, some on banners, some on meeting the public in public places, all just so in that 12 months on we've not gone anywhere and if anything we're stronger than
ever. There's more people standing up to the plate and saying enough is enough, this cannot continue. And then there's going to be another protest on the 26th in London and I hear they've got some quite colourful things being approved by the police for them to do while they're there, which will definitely make him very interesting media which I don't think anyone has seen before, not in this country.
OK. Are you, are you going to give any more detail on that or are you going to keep that under wraps? Well, let's just say if it's correct, what there's been put around social media for proof. Today you may see some planting in London. OK, right. All right, so, and let's say you know, you're you're watching, listening to this, you're not in London. Realistically, the chances of you getting there on the 26th are slim.
How can people go about finding out specifically more about this and and sort of expressing support and getting getting the sense that they are doing something meaningful? If they see it on social media, watch it, like it, share it on there. If you've got an MP and you do not like the way things are going, write to them and tell them he didn't like it. Tell them that this budget is
not sustainable. The key fact here, which is recognized worldwide, is that for every pound invested by an agricultural business, it generates 7 LB in the wider economy. Because we're losing money and because we're people are thinking of devaluing their businesses. Now they're not improving that they're not by machinery, they're not investing. Therefore the economy is crashing.
We've never seen so many agricultural businesses, so feed suppliers, machinery manufacturers, builders, merchants going bust because we are not not improving and investing in the businesses. And what's happened as a result, growth and GDP is crashing. It's not a case of just getting money back for I think it's 23 1/2 hours. The NHS would run off that figure generated by. It's a case of when we're not making money, other businesses
aren't and they're going bust. This then reduces their tax special. When farming is successful, all other industries are successful and economy grows producing more tax. So stop biting the hand that feeds you and destroying your own tax income which is detrimental effect on the public purse, council tax and all local authorities and the public directly through the cost of food. Help farming survive and thrive and the entire country survive and thrive with you.
You tell that to your MPs and tell them not to back this budget and then see what happens because that's when you get real change. And that's the best way you can support not just farmers, but yourselves and future generations to come by stabilizing our nation and making it prosper again. By working together. Well, let's hope that that message is received far and wide and and that people in the first instance are at least becoming
better informed about this. Because I think, you know, over the course of this discussion so far, you, you've explained so many things that I think the general public are woefully unaware of in the relationships between farmers and supermarkets and government and local politicians and even amongst
each other. Now just just to, I don't want to necessarily sort of bring the mood down, but a lot of what we're considering in so far as land is concerned, and this is bearing in mind roughly 70% of the United Kingdom is in private ownership or, or or in trust with bills in Parliament like the planning and infrastructure bill where there's a proposed compulsory purchase at aggregate. You know, we're effectively without developers premium for
agricultural land. The Land Reform Bill is going through in Scotland which is absolutely specifically targeting anybody with a holding of more than 1000 hectares and in effect it's setting the conditions for what many will say has already started but a land grab do Do you see that this is an overt statement of the intent to grab land and and
if So, what for? I would say it's a land ground grab and I'd say the IHT is the stick to force it on forever because if there's not enough profit for you to continue farming you're forced to sell it. Only any people who can afford to buy it is a large corporations which are backing and pushing these bills through mostly for carbon capture, rewilding, tree planting and other solar farms for example. So again it's a case of follow the money. It's very difficult to stop it
but all you can do is try. And I'm not quite sure on the best way to answer that situation, but I'd rather try and fail than stand by and do nothing. Yeah. Well, fair enough entirely. Now, one of the difficulties with any of these sorts of
things that become contentious. And I think we can perhaps agree that that a lot of what we're talking about has the potential to be contentious because of the predication of government policy on the idea that let's say there is a climate emergency or there's a biodiversity emergency because of climate change and all these sorts of things. That the, the issue as far as the public are concerned is that a lot of people have been led to believe that such a thing is the case.
And that therefore it follows that, well, OK, we shouldn't eat meat, we shouldn't eat dairy. This, that and the other.
So the important thing obviously in in conversation is to not find yourself banging heads with somebody, but indeed to find that sort of sensitive approach where you're not going to turn it into a conflict and indeed help somebody to see how the situation actually is. Now, do do you have any advice in that area as to sort of how to engage people in conversation, how to make it more meaningful, more relevant, and indeed to to sort of suggest that people actually have been
deceived? It's a difficult subject to normally try to highlight the difference between grass fed locally and arable fed and imported from abroad, especially on food mothers. And also the fact that if they're really concerned about the environment they wouldn't be building more runways for planes or they'd be considering reducing that. It seems madness to be increasing in industry, which is by far the largest Pluter.
And they've also stated they've miscalculated airport emissions if I remember correctly by two Ferrers per flight because they've always made the assumption of plane flies in a straight line rather than the curve and it's actually triple the amount of fuel they use on transport.
The fact they can buy carbon credits off corporations because they're owned by the milk companies, not by the farmers, to make them carbon neutral and then claim that farmers are causing environmental doubt is completely absurd. Otherwise they wouldn't be buying the carbon credits.
So that's the easiest, the most sensible way to highlight that if farming and food production in the UK wasn't green, they wouldn't be buying carbon credits from farm food production to sell to dirty industries such as airports and industry. OK, Yeah, got it.
Now, Now on the on the sort of what people can do front, because the UK call them audience in particular is very passionate about sort of becoming engaged and and active and and what 1 can do. Now people have very different domestic situations, some living rurally, some some urban in terms of engagement with farmers. Well, you could answer this perhaps personally or indeed within a regional or network context.
Are you sort of open to people coming to you and saying, look, we would love to have a supply of, you know, whether it be beef or vegetables or, or whatever it is in order to, to set up those relationships that you describe. You know the importance of engaging the public, How, how would people be best advised to go about that within this, you know, the areas that they live. Join a join a farmers group on Facebook or social media, there's lots of them about and literally pop in.
Or even just put common on Facebook saying I'd like to buy X locally. Does anyone know anyone who sells direct? Is there a local market nearby? Normally boxed meat direct from farm is cheaper than you will get it from a farmers marketing place. It's far cheaper than the supermarket and a lot better quality on assign for vegetables and things on it. Join an allotment group. There's lots of those about on
there and help grab it yourself. It does good for the environment and it's good activity for the kids to learn about food and bond the family. But message farmers or go to an open farm Sunday and if you've done very good things with that, I'm sure more of them will come and see a bit more of how things are done for yourself. But yeah, message a farmers group. They're always happy to help and talk about their produce and what they do and where you can get it. It's about rebuilding a
community. In the old days it used to be he knew everybody because he bought everything with everyone. Now we're all a little segregated through using your phones but you don't talk to your neighbors. It's a bit more getting back to, even if it is through social media, but speaking to the locals, you know where you can get it and getting a bit of good old fashioned person to person conversation going and getting your products while you're there. Yeah, at least learning where
you can. Yes, indeed. Yeah, absolutely. Face to face being being totally critical to that. Now, obviously we started the conversation by describing the disbandment of FARMS to Action. Where does that put you in so far as the deliverable effect that that you can have? It might be a little bit too early to answer that, bearing in mind this is very new news. But but do you see that you will forge ahead and perhaps create another, another sort of network or what's the plan in the in the
wake of what's happened? The the network is still intact. All of the WhatsApp groups, all the farmers groups are still there. Ours and others is purely the fact that the limited company has been dissolved. We're not going to try and push it through as an entity there. They won't be using the same logo due to that as well, but the farmers can still chat independently by county and organise. I will still be going to supporting the independent action on the 24th.
I'm going to try and go to London as well. I'll still be attending the conferences and I'll still be working with the other groups and protest groups which have always stayed as protest groups and not even attempted to form a new union to and it and maybe somebody else would wish to take up that mantle. But at this time, when tensions are high and individuals might do things which would cause problems, it is best not to be in that situation. Yeah, I know that entirely. Fair enough.
And that's that's completely understood. Now, this isn't absolutely not a criticism because let's face it, social media is a complete nightmare for for almost everybody except for those who seem to enjoy it. But one of the difficulties is finding, finding information. Do do you have somewhere that you would advise people to go whether or not they're on social media? Cause of course not everybody is how does one find out what is
going on? I mean, we are, we are clearly publicizing what's happening in the in the week 24th of November onwards. But where would you point people towards if they are feeling that they're not within their immediate circles necessarily aware of of all of this? Well there there's several groups like dig on the dig on in Wales, which is enough is enough. You've got all farmers, local county farmers group, farmers Unite, E Anglian farmers all by region.
If you type in farm protests on any social media you will find multiple protest groups names. Come up with pictures of it and follow your local 1, the nearest one to you and see what's posted. And when you see something of interest, read it, share it and pass it around your friends. That's probably the best way to do it.
OK, Alan, that's terrific. And now just to, to wind up, do you yourself have a, have a sort of an outlet, social media or, or a website or anything that you would direct people towards to find out a bit about sort of what you're going to do? Well, I'm on social media on TikTok as Alan the structure farmer. They're happy to follow me if it's something I think really needs to get out. I normally send it towards Gareth Wynne Jones, one of the
larger influencers. So have a look at those guys as well. And yeah, I get normally posted by other groups too if there's something that I'm supporting action as much as possible, whether it's in person or speaking on days or attending it. So just keep your eyes out. Said I'm not going to stop fighting, I'll just keep pushing as I have as an independent and support those which want to do action to improve our country and the situation in British agriculture.
Excellent and links to all the things that Alan has just mentioned will be in the notes below this interview. But that has been a comprehensive insight into the situation at hand and indeed the way out of it, at least in theory. So it's up to anyone listening to this to pass it on and indeed act on the various suggestions there. One, one might say, but I I will offer my sincere thanks to Alan Hughes for joining me today. Alan, it's been a pleasure to talk to you and a real insight.
Thank you very much indeed, and indeed good luck to you. Thank you very much for having me, have a good day.