The Farmers Fight

Control of food production means more control of populations.

What is it with mega-rich men? They could be using their wealth to help alleviate poverty but they won't relinquish power. They want to control.
Gates, Musk - what is their end game?

I'm no expert here. Does this also mean like lab-grown meat to replace cows? Yuck!

GrannyGravy13

Bill Gates visited the PM before the budget, is the future of British Farming?

I will be out protesting if it is…

Money talks

Yes, I know much of the NFU, I lived in Powys Wales for many
years

https://www.gransnet.com/uploads/talk/202411/medium-155109-img-1153.png https://www.gransnet.com/uploads/talk/202411/medium-25862-img-1152.png

Bill Gates visited the PM before the budget, is the future of British Farming?

I will be out protesting if it is…

eddiecat78 I agree.

GrannyGravy13

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I trust the NFU much more than the Government. They are an integral part of the farming community and well placed to know what the true situation is. The majority of farmers are members. They insure with the NFU, consult them for legal advice, attend monthly meetings of their local branches, enter crop and livestock competitions organised by the NFU. Local branches are likely to have dealt personally with families for several generations. They attend funerals and know exactly what each farm situation is

MaizieD yes, we have large areas of grey and brown fields. The council sold one such area to a developer for £4 recently. I appreciate we sound like the developer described us, a small vociferous but noisy group. The reality is the roads are choked, our schools full, GP dittto. 300 houses probably means 600 cars as transport links are poor. One village has one bus a day.
Our town centre has many opportunities for affordable housing. The developer stands to make much more profit building here where housing is more expensive.

Just as a matter of interest, Iam64, does your group have an alternative site to propose for those 300 houses?

GrannyGravy13

MaizieD

GrannyGravy13

Housing is irrelevant to this topic

Actually MaizieD it isn’t as the Deputy PM has stated repeatedly that this Government will allow building homes on greenfield sites. I wouldn’t be surprised if Labour allow PDR’s on farmland.

It is when we are talking about land sales to foreign investors.

I think you are missing the point that once foreign investors have purchased land in the U.K. it is theirs to do with as they wish provided they get the appropriate change of use permission.

A local pressure group, fully supported by our 3 Labour councillors just successfully prevented a planning application to build on green belt. We were a village, now a suburb like so many places.
It wasn’t productive farmland but its home to ancient woodlands and deer, birds of prey and more. We plan to oppose another application to build 300 houses on parkland. We seek to convince planners it should be a new country park providing safe habitat for trees, shrubs and animals/birds.
Our 3 councillors fully support us.
Our local farmers these days are sheep and cattle though we’ve lost 4 small dairy farms in the 50 years I’ve lived hete

Allira

David49

GrannyGravy13

MaizieD

GrannyGravy13

Housing is irrelevant to this topic

Actually MaizieD it isn’t as the Deputy PM has stated repeatedly that this Government will allow building homes on greenfield sites. I wouldn’t be surprised if Labour allow PDR’s on farmland.

It is when we are talking about land sales to foreign investors.

I think you are missing the point that once foreign investors have purchased land in the U.K. it is theirs to do with as they wish provided they get the appropriate change of use permission.

It doesn’t have to be a foreign investor, anyone can do that “BUT” why would they, they then loose the IHT concession.
You can develope it into a golf course, housing estate or whatever you want, there are no concessions.
That is the disadvantage of diversified enterprises there is no IHT concession, you pay business rates too, so to be worthwhile you must have a high income, which you then pay income tax on.

The consequence being that more productive farmland is lost.

That was the whole point!

I don't think you read David's reply quite right.

^It doesn’t have to be a foreign investor, anyone can do that “BUT” why would they they then loose the IHT concession.T

He was saying that (up until now) there was an advantage to keeping land as farmland because there was no IHT paid on it. Other enterprises would attract taxation in one form or another.

David49

GrannyGravy13

MaizieD

GrannyGravy13

Housing is irrelevant to this topic

Actually MaizieD it isn’t as the Deputy PM has stated repeatedly that this Government will allow building homes on greenfield sites. I wouldn’t be surprised if Labour allow PDR’s on farmland.

It is when we are talking about land sales to foreign investors.

I think you are missing the point that once foreign investors have purchased land in the U.K. it is theirs to do with as they wish provided they get the appropriate change of use permission.

It doesn’t have to be a foreign investor, anyone can do that “BUT” why would they, they then loose the IHT concession.
You can develope it into a golf course, housing estate or whatever you want, there are no concessions.
That is the disadvantage of diversified enterprises there is no IHT concession, you pay business rates too, so to be worthwhile you must have a high income, which you then pay income tax on.

The consequence being that more productive farmland is lost.

That was the whole point!

GrannyGravy13

MaizieD

GrannyGravy13

Housing is irrelevant to this topic

Actually MaizieD it isn’t as the Deputy PM has stated repeatedly that this Government will allow building homes on greenfield sites. I wouldn’t be surprised if Labour allow PDR’s on farmland.

It is when we are talking about land sales to foreign investors.

I think you are missing the point that once foreign investors have purchased land in the U.K. it is theirs to do with as they wish provided they get the appropriate change of use permission.

It doesn’t have to be a foreign investor, anyone can do that “BUT” why would they, they then loose the IHT concession.
You can develope it into a golf course, housing estate or whatever you want, there are no concessions.
That is the disadvantage of diversified enterprises there is no IHT concession, you pay business rates too, so to be worthwhile you must have a high income, which you then pay income tax on.

Much is just being put into environmental crops to get those payments, a large estate adjacent to me has taken all 2000 acres out of production.
Many others are going the same way, if they tried to farm it they wouldn’t make money by the time they paid agents and managers.

Sure the NFU would say that .

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MaizieD

GrannyGravy13

Housing is irrelevant to this topic

Actually MaizieD it isn’t as the Deputy PM has stated repeatedly that this Government will allow building homes on greenfield sites. I wouldn’t be surprised if Labour allow PDR’s on farmland.

It is when we are talking about land sales to foreign investors.

I think you are missing the point that once foreign investors have purchased land in the U.K. it is theirs to do with as they wish provided they get the appropriate change of use permission.

GrannyGravy13

^Housing is irrelevant to this topic^

Actually MaizieD it isn’t as the Deputy PM has stated repeatedly that this Government will allow building homes on greenfield sites. I wouldn’t be surprised if Labour allow PDR’s on farmland.

It is when we are talking about land sales to foreign investors.

What else would they do with it?
Leisure and sporting activities, and maybe for themselves occasionally at that. Often located by rivers or coastal areas.
I'm not putting agents' details on here, but there are Devon farms on the market, in the millions, where the agricultural part is now mentioned as minimal compared with other opportunities.

Housing is irrelevant to this topic

Actually MaizieD it isn’t as the Deputy PM has stated repeatedly that this Government will allow building homes on greenfield sites. I wouldn’t be surprised if Labour allow PDR’s on farmland.

Allira

MaizieD

Allira

MaizieD

What do they do with it then, Allira?

They buy up London property and leave it empty.

The Government wants more housing to be built and will give the green light for change of use; the Green Belt here has disappeared and is disappearing. More houses will soon be built on what are fields of sheep at the moment.

Sorry, I thought we were talking about foreign investors who are buying UK land.

We are.
Investments in property and in land.

I'm well aware of high end 'investment' properties being left empty by their overseas owners, but we are talking about land, aren't we.

All I'm saying is that if it's farmland it's likely to be continued to be farmed by tenants. What else would they do with it?

Housing is irrelevant to this topic.

MaizieD

Allira

MaizieD

What do they do with it then, Allira?

They buy up London property and leave it empty.

The Government wants more housing to be built and will give the green light for change of use; the Green Belt here has disappeared and is disappearing. More houses will soon be built on what are fields of sheep at the moment.

Sorry, I thought we were talking about foreign investors who are buying UK land.

We are.
Investments in property and in land.

Allira

MaizieD

What do they do with it then, Allira?

They buy up London property and leave it empty.

The Government wants more housing to be built and will give the green light for change of use; the Green Belt here has disappeared and is disappearing. More houses will soon be built on what are fields of sheep at the moment.

Sorry, I thought we were talking about foreign investors who are buying UK land.

I'm in Devon/Cornwall region. Foreign ownership accounts for well over 10,000 properties here. The expensive estates. Mainly owners in South-East Asia and the Middle East.
If they buy up farms, of course they will have no interest in the income. They don't need it!

It's quite astonishing!

Also astonishing is the fact that people don't realise we can't grow some of the more exotic fruits and vegetables, or even the everyday bananas and citrus fruits, in this country.

Many Kent apple orchards were grubbed up years ago, too, when we were in the EU.