WATCH: ‘Food security isn’t government’s top priority’ says Farm Ness farmer
The operator of Farm Ness says inheritance tax has inflicted much ‘uncertainty’ amongst farmers and they ‘don’t feel supported by the government’ since the latest Budget was announced.
Donald and Joanna Fraser run and own Farm Ness. Donald is the fourth generation of farmers in his family and spends his days perfecting the farm’s barley crop in order to make delicious whisky, in addition to looking after livestock and environmental work.
On the other hand, Joanna isn’t from a farming background and has built up Farm Ness, the shop, cafe, food truck and events, like Farmer Christmas.
Donald said: “We can only produce 55 per cent of our food in Britain, so that’s not a good place to be, but I don’t think that food security is a top priority for the government at the minute and I think that’s quite scary.”
When talking on behalf of being a mother and a previous school teacher, Joanna said: “I want the food on their plates in the school canteen to be local food.”
Joanna also raised her concerns about children’s opportunities to become a farmer being wiped away due to the recent farming tax. She said: “Children were at that farmers' march [in London] saying they wanted to be a farmer, but it’s not just farmers' children, there are other children out there that aren’t from farms that want to become farmers and that’s been taken away from them.”
When talking about the current situation, Donald said: “Basically, I think they’re trying to stop people investing in land that aren’t from farming and who are just trying to bury money and avoid tax.
“But where they’ve set that threshold at £1 million, which is the first threshold, it sounds like a lot of money, but it’s not in farming and unfortunately that’s a really hard one to convey.
“A lot of farms have quite heavy borrowing, so adding the possibility of inheritance tax on top of that just puts so much pressure on.
“I think they have to be careful because while farmers always want to produce, we need to think ‘what are we doing here?’ For that turnover of £1 million, we make pennies.”
“There’s no clear picture of where we’re going, there’s no clear picture of what the government actually wants, so no we don’t feel supported.”
Donald is now urging the government to ‘remove some of these uncertainties’ and ‘give some clarity’.
He said: “We’re not only farmers, we look after the ground and do a lot of environmental work. We need to look after the countryside, and whose best placed to do that? Probably the farmer.
“So why not work with us, support us, let us produce food and look after the environment.”
