UK Farmers- Our Focus Needs to Change

“We need to feed the nation”

Do we? The last time I checked we aren’t in World War 2 anymore and the government seem hell bent on buying in most of our food from all over the place, so maybe we should let them get on with it. So why are we still stuck with this old mindset of “we need to feed the nation” because this mindset causes pressure, it causes arguments, late nights, and multiple injuries even death within the farming community because we are always under pressure to “feed the nation” that right now does not want to be fed by us.

Then what about inheritance tax (IHT), I read this morning in a farming magazine that many farmers see no future hope in creating profitable businesses now because of IHT. Well I wasn’t part of this study because to me farming the way we are starting to farm, does look really hopeful. And if we make the plans now, and the government still want us to pay IHT when that day comes, if we haven’t worked out how to dodge the bullet, like many mulit millionaires seem to be able to, then so be it. We will have to work out a way to pay it, or make a plan now.

But I am not going to start believing that there is no future for our farming family, because ultimately thats what “they” want us to believe so we give up and sell up, we stop encouraging our kids to come home farming, and we roll over and let the government win.

Well thats not happening on my watch, on our farm! and it shouldn't be happening on yours either.

Right now is the time for all of us UK farmers, to get our heads out of the sand and start thinking about what needs to change, so that we can be reinstated to have the power we have always had as land owners.

A simple mindset change we have made as a farming family who has inherited our land off the back of hard grafting family members (who were alive in the war) is what is actually best for us? What do we need to do to make sure our family is taken care of first, our relationships with one another as well as our physical needs of course. Finances, food and homes.

This has taken us on a path I don’t think any of us thought possible once upon a time, but we are starting to see the fruits of our labours, even if its just that we can speak to each other without falling out every 5 minutes. You reap what you sow!

In my mind the government may not want us, but the pubic do more than we think, but main stream media doesn’t report that. I discovered whilst doing our farm tours for families many more people want to know where there food comes from, how it is grown, and even the end processes and these are our people, our potential customers. The ones who will have somewhere to go when the food supply chain gets to a point where you just don’t know what is in your food anymore.

What would happen then if we all changed the mindset to “we want to feed the community around us that want what we have to offer?”

Firstly it takes the pressure off doesn’t it? instead of feeding everyone, lets feed ourselves and then families around us like it used to be.

Let’s let the government get on with their plans to try and destroy the industry for their ill gotten gains, whilst we take things back into our own hands, and literally wash our hands of them. So then when the shit hits the proverbial fan which it could do in my life time, we can be the ones they come crying to with their tail between their legs, because they have an over crowded island and they no longer know how to feed everyone.

I will be the first to have a smug smile on my face because as land owners we have some serious power and its time we learnt that and started using it.