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It was an unusual sight at 10, Downing Street, where instead of the suave sedans that cruise past the official address of the British Prime Minister, farm tractors swarmed over the area as cultivators protested against their government’s policies which they deem as ‘anti-farmer’.
The British farmers are opposed to the changes in the agricultural property relief (APR) taxation rules.
The latest Budget passed by the British Parliament demands that from April 6, 2026 onwards, the absolute relief for farmers from the inheritance tax will be limited to a million pounds of the total agricultural and commercial properties. Above £1m, the landowners will be required to pay taxes at a reduced rate of 20 per cent as opposed to the standard 40 per cent for non-farm owners.
Meanwhile, the protests also reflect upon low food prices and increased expenses on agriculture such as fertilisers, pesticides and fuel.
On a lighter note, quirky tycoon Elon Musk, compared the situation in Britain to Joseph Stalin's policies of taking over the lands of rich farmers (called Kulaks in Russian).
“Britain is going full Stalin,” tweeted Musk who is seen basking in the company of US President-elect Donald Trump after the election victory.
Since 1992, APR regime has ensured that ancestral farmlands have been inherited by British farmers without paying a pound in tax.
This tax-free regime enjoyed by the British farmers was built on the rationale that farming wasn’t a typically profitable enterprise, requires tedious labour and the British government would be compromising on food security in case these landowners began selling their lands which would most likely be used for non-agricultural activities.
While Prime Minister Keir Starmer has repeatedly argued that the tax won’t affect a wide majority of farmers and would only collect revenue from the rich landowners, the protesting farmers aren’t convinced.
Be it India, United States or Europe, farmers across the world seem to be standing at crossroads against their governments who are accommodating to longstanding demands of enforcing stricter climate regulations and lifting off the subsidies.
The British farm owners are the latest group of cultivators to launch protests against their government — a crisis that started off with the Dutch in 2019, boiled over to the Germans in 2023 who were then joined by their Polish and French farm brethren in their struggle against their respective governments’ early this year.
The most vigorous of these protests were reported from Germany where thousands of farmers deployed their heavy farm machinery on major roads in Berlin, Freiburg, Leipzig, and Chemnitz, essentially throwing traffic normalcy out of gear.
The German farmers have enjoyed heavy subsidies which allowed them to have an edge over export markets as farmers in Asia and Africa struggled against the subsidised prices of German food exports. Their government is in a process of withdrawing these subsidies as challenges arising out of Russia’s war in Ukraine have called for austerity measures.