Together with the NFU, NFU Cymru President Mr Jones made the call for a united stand at the machinery and technology show LAMMA, held at the NEC in Birmingham on Wednesday 15 January, where hundreds of agriculture-related companies and suppliers were in attendance.
Exhibitors attending the event echoed the concerns raised by the UK farming unions in response to the UK Government’s October Budget. That announcement saw UK Government bring forward proposed changes to Agricultural Property Relief (APR) and Business Property Relief that the union says could threaten the future of the family farm and jeopardise the UK’s food security.
Concerns over the impact of the UK Government’s changes to APR and BPR have been reinforced by independent analysis commissioned by the NFU, which shows that 75% of farm businesses could be impacted in some way by the family farm tax. Meanwhile, new data from CBI Economics has shown that the changes to BPR could lead to more than 125,000 job losses, with family businesses significantly cutting investment.
Standing together
Speaking at LAMMA as the union gathered agriculture-related exhibitors to show the wider impact of the family farm tax, NFU Cymru President Aled Jones stressed that the wider industry must stand together against the proposals.
Mr Jones said: “The collection of companies we’ve brought together at LAMMA are a striking representation of the huge amount of support we’ve received from so many companies across the UK in our fight against the family farm tax. The impact this policy will have on the whole rural community is enormous, it’s a ripple effect from our family farms into the wider allied industries that rely on farming for so much of their income.
“It’s vital that the whole rural fraternity stands together in opposition to these proposals and that we continue to underline to government just how damaging these changes will be.”