Welsh farmers have warned Britain could face food shortages if the agricultural industry is hammered by cuts in Rachel Reeves’s Autumn Budget.
Gareth Wyn Jones, 57, of Tyn Llwyfan Farm, North Wales, told Express.co.uk: “We are sleepwalking into food shortages.”
Campaigners warn that farming families are already working 60-hour weeks, with livestock farmers earning an average income of just £22,000 – which equates to just a fraction of the National Living Wage.
They are begging the Government to reconsider any further cuts in order to protect thousands of livelihoods with proposed inheritance tax hike spelling disaster for future generations.
Mr Jones, who has been a vocal leader in campaign group Digon yw Digon and has gained more than two million followers across his social media platforms, recalls the early days of the protests stating: “I was in the first meeting in Welshpool, that’s where it all started. Thousands of people turned up. Then we went to Carmarthen and met with former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. We organised a big protest in Cardiff where thousands more farmers turned up.”
The protests aren’t just about noise, they’re a fight for survival in the face of mounting financial pressures.
Mr Jones explained: “The majority of farmers are working round-the-clock, and it’s just not sustainable. I’ve just come off the phone with a lady, another farmer, and she’s been on Universal Credit for the last two or three years. She’s been struggling, and now they’ve cut her Universal Credit. These are the people at the top of the food chain, the ones who should be protected, and they’re struggling to make ends meet.”
Mr Jones stressed the broader economic impact, stating: “Farmers are the beating heart of the rural economy. But with rising costs – from fertiliser to feed – it’s impacting the entire supply chain. If farmers can’t pay their bills, then tractor sales, equipment sales, everything stalls. It’s a knock-on effect that impacts the whole rural community.”
Mr Jones continued: “We’re not looking for sympathy, we just want a fair price for what we do. We want to feed the nation affordably, sustainably, in a seasonal way, but if we don’t get support from the Government, then the entire system collapses. The nitrate vulnerable zones in Wales – these things are putting farmers out of business.”
He added: “Plus, there’s a massive cloud above the industry with the inheritance tax.”
The toll on farmers’ mental health is also becoming unbearable. Mr Jones said: “We’re losing people from this industry. Suicides are rising. People’s mental health is at its lowest, and all we get from the Government is more stress and strain. You turn off that food tap, and it doesn’t come back on like people think.”
Mr Jones also pointed to the importation of food from countries with far less stringent regulations than the UK. He said: “They’re importing food from countries where they use all kinds of pesticides and chemicals. They haven’t got the regulations and legislations that we’ve got, with our Red Tractor standards.
“It’s heartbreaking. And who pays the price? The poor. People on the breadline. They won’t be able to afford decent food. They’ll end up eating rubbish, and that will only add more costs to the NHS when people get sick.”
Digon yw Digon has issued an open letter to the Prime Minister and Treasury, urging the Government to reconsider any cuts that could threaten the future of British farming.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves has stated that the upcoming Budget on Wednesday, October 30, will require “difficult decisions on tax, spending, and welfare,” prompting alarm within the agricultural sector.
Earlier this year, Digon yw Digon, which means ‘enough is enough’ in Welsh, organised peaceful gatherings across Wales to draw attention to the challenges faced by farmers, particularly those working in grazing livestock farming, which represents over 80 percent of farms in Wales.
Thousands attended, including a record-breaking demonstration at the Welsh Senedd. Concerns now centre on potential cuts to the agricultural budget and changes to Agricultural Property Relief (APR).
A spokesperson from Digon yw Digon highlighted that this worry over food security is compounded by fears of inheritance tax changes that could end family farms. He said: “If anything is to change… inheritance tax will finish British family farms. It could be the end of family farms.”
The group calls for urgent Government intervention to avoid a crisis that could reverberate beyond Wales, threatening UK food security and risking severe economic consequences for rural communities.
A Welsh Government Spokesperson, said: “We have this week confirmed that £157.8million has been paid to over 15,500 Welsh farm businesses as Basic Payment Scheme (BPS) 2024 advance payments are made.
“We recognise the very real challenges facing the sector and are in discussions with stakeholders and unions as we prepare our own draft Budget 2025-26.”
Below is Digon yw Digon’s open letter to the Prime Minister and Treasury, which outlines the gravity of the situation for Welsh farmers and calls for urgent action:
Dear Prime Minister,
Earlier this year, Digon yw Digon organised peaceful and lawful gatherings in Wales in order to highlight concerns of Welsh farmers and others involved in agricultural supply chains. The gatherings were attended by thousands of people, and included the largest ever held outside the Welsh Senedd, making national news and leading to Welsh Government recognition of the need to review proposals for a new Welsh agricultural policy.
The core issues that led to such large attendance by farmers and others who work in the agriculture and food industry do not differ significantly to those which have triggered nurses, teachers and others to take to the streets in recent years: People want fair incomes that reflect their working conditions and the hours they put in producing food for the nation.
On the grazing livestock farms which make up more than 80 percent of Welsh farms, the average annual income over the past five years has been around £22,000.
Given that farming families typically work more than sixty hours a week, this equates to an average farm income per hour that is a fraction of the National Minimum Wage.
More than 75 percent of that income came from the Basic Payment Scheme, the budget for which sits outside the Barnett Formula and is allocated by the UK Government.
Given this, speculation regarding possible cuts to such funding in the Autumn Budget are a grave concern for tens of thousands of working families which rely on farming for a living.
This includes not only those who are farmers themselves, but also the tens of thousands more who work in the agricultural supply chain and rely directly and indirectly on a Welsh farming budget which has effectively remained frozen in nominal terms since 2014, and would be at least £125 million higher per annum had it kept up with inflation.
Notwithstanding this, such an increase to the Welsh budget would not come close to taking into account the increasing costs for farmers associated with new expectations in terms of delivering more public goods, such as more diverse habitats to maintain biodiversity and changes to land management to reduce downstream flooding and carbon sequestration.
It should also be noted that the sums required to deliver a satisfactory budget that secures the incomes of farmers and those employed in the food supply chain represent a tiny fraction of the UK’s overall budget, and that without such security there would not only be a massive increase in demand on the state due to rural poverty, but also a significant inflationary impact for the entire population due to reductions in domestic food production coupled with increases in food prices and increased exposure to the volatility of global markets.
The speculation around possible changes to Agricultural Property Relief are also a cause for grave concern within the farming community, and, given the unacceptably low incomes described above, it is clear that the loss of such relief would wipe out Welsh family farms in a single generation.
Changes to APR and/or a failure to restore Wales’ agricultural funding allocation would not only have a devastating impact on farming families and those working in agricultural supply chains; these would also directly threaten UK food security, given that the vast majority of food produced in Wales is consumed in England and that such adverse effects would also impact on farmers and food producers in other parts of the UK.
The reaction of farmers and others who work in agricultural supply chains to changes in the Autumn Budget which make an already dire state of affairs worse will be no different to the actions taken by those in other industries when they have seen their livelihoods threatened.
Digon yw Digon is committed to doing what it can to ensure that any such actions are peaceful and lawful, but in the first instance we would urge you to honour your commitment to hardworking families by ensuring future agriculture budgets reflect the importance of fair incomes and food production, and that no changes are made to Agricultural Property Relief for genuine farmers.
Yours faithfully,
Digon yw Digon
