Rural communities from across the country descended on London today to protest against Labour’s recent budget and the devastating impact it stands to have on rural communities.
The anger felt from the farming community comes not just because the of the IHT policy itself, but by the perceived deception by the Labour party who had categorically denied that they were going to alter the policy prior to the election.
The consequences of this are the inevitable breakup of farms up and down the country and, in some cases, a whole way of life being lost.
The only winners are likely to be large corporate buyouts and investors who will seek to scoop up land on the cheap for carbon offsetting projects or other practices that don’t produce food or provide nature friendly farming.
As Lib Dem leader, Ed Davey, speculated that farmers will be forced to sell up he asked the crowds: "Who else will put healthy, nutritious food on our tables... If we lose the families who have been doing it so passionately for generations?"
Unlike many recent protest marches the difference here was there was no aggression, no hostilities in the atmosphere, just 20,000 very decent hard-working people who represented the very best of British values.
Despite the rain, women, children and the elderly stood patiently listening to horror stories from family farmers as their whole way of life comes under threat. For the most part, despite the anger, they stood there with deep respect the those around them and with a smiles on their faces.
The vast majority of farmers in this country are not multi-millionaires but men and women making low incomes for seriously hard work, mostly earning less than the minimum wage and working around the clock 365 days a year.
[A previous protest by rural communities]
These are the people who are not just delivering food for our country, but also creating rich habitats for nature to thrive and landscapes that tens of millions of people love to visit each year. It is also doing this with little cost to the public purse when compared to the publicly funded projects run by conservation organisations or government departments.
If the UK is going to have a chance of meeting its legally binding targets for nature recovery by 2030 then it is going to need to rely on rural communities, particularly land managers and gamekeepers, to deliver this. If the government continues down this path it stands to put the immediate brakes on many great projects to protect nature and the environment.
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