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.