Farming

Agri-food imports and exports have plummeted, and farmers are increasingly concerned

Our annual round-up of the people Britain could do without has stirred up some strong views

The inheritance tax debate is a little more nuanced than you will read on social media

The Reform leader is marching for farmers but it's his Brexit which has caused them most harm

These protests have picked the wrong cause. Brexit is what they should be angriest about

There is no economic justification for all farmers passing their estates on to their children tax-free

Post-Brexit subsidies were supposed to save the countryside. Instead they’ve given landowners incentives to oust their tenant farmers

In post-Brexit Britain, money is tight and the future is scarily uncertain for the agriculture sector

The eye-catching tractor protests are justified from a stitched-up sector that mostly voted Leave

The PM’s performance at the NFU conference was pathetic even by his standards

Agriculture is in a crisis created by Brexit, and farmers are furious.. as Jacob Rees-Mogg found out

In 2022, Britain produced a billion fewer eggs than in 2019. The knock-on effects of that shortfall are huge

On the outskirts of the capital, Punjabi-Sikhs are being forced to work in brutal conditions

Industry hit with a blow as government halts trial of a system designed to limit paperwork

While the prime minister lauds Britain's farmers, the industry struggles to cope with a Brexit triple whammy of his government's own making

Our experience shows that this time, no deal really could be better than a bad deal

Yes, it’s a deal. But it’s a bad deal. Very very bad

New poll shows 79% think trade deals with Australia and New Zealand are bad

Just a tiny fraction of England’s farms have received payment under the government’s sustainable farming incentive

With a lack of foreign labour in Britain’s fields, crops are rotting and thousands of healthy pigs are being culled unnecessarily

At least 40,000 pigs have been culled and their meat wasted because Brexit has led to a lack of butchers to process them

Ian Blackford has kicked off parliamentary scrutiny of the government’s post-Brexit trade deal with Australia by asking the prime minister multiple questions on the subject at PMQs. The leader of the SNP used his questions to ask for more “details of the disastrous trade deal with Australia”. He said these details were “busy being celebrated in Canberra, but […]

MPs have written to Liz Truss demanding parliamentary scrutiny of the government’s post-Brexit trade deal with Australia. A series of MPs, representing all four nations, have written to the international trade secretary amid concerns that the deal could negatively affect the country’s farmers and put them out of business. In the letter, which was coordinated […]

It has been a gloomy week on the sunlit uplands of sovereign Britain as our willingness to roll over for a trade deal with Australia confirms that the government does not give a XXXX about its own farmers. Despite complaints from that flaming galah George Eustice, trade secretary Liz ‘one stubbie short of a six-pack’ Truss […]

British farming will struggle to compete if zero-tariff trade on lamb and beef goes ahead with a post-Brexit trade deal with Australia, the president of the National Farmers’ Union (NFU) has said. A split has emerged within cabinet over the prospect of such an agreement, with environment secretary George Eustice and cabinet office minister Michael […]

Keir Starmer is to become the first Labour leader to address the National Farmers’ Union (NFU) since Gordon Brown in 2008. Starmer will tell farmers that Labour’s history owes as much to the countryside as it does to the city as he promises to bring the party closer to rural communities. The Labour leader will […]

Each dawn, sheep farmer Thomas Carrick works the land through freezing winter rain and snow, 2,000 feet up in the bleak Cumbrian fells. Like many British farmers, he is about to find out if life outside the EU is even colder and darker. Well used to weather dependent good and bad years, sheep farming is […]

Brexiteer James Dyson’s farming business only managed to make a profit in the last year because it benefited from EU subsidies, it has been reported. Beeswax Dyson Farming posted £3.4 million pre-tax profits last year, the Times reports, up from £2.7 million in 2018. But without a £3.4 million cash injection from the EU’s common agricultural […]

The government’s environment secretary has insisted that protections for food and farming standards are not necessary – because it was in the Conservative Party manifesto. On Monday, MPs voted to overturn measures aimed at protecting UK food standards in future trade deals. But defending the decision of government to vote against such protections, George Eustice […]

MPs voted 332 to 279 to overturn a House of Lords amendment to the Agriculture Bill which would have required agricultural and food imports to meet domestic standards. The Lords had made the change to block the import of foodstuffs produced abroad with lower animal welfare standards, amid warnings over chlorinated chicken or hormone-treated beef […]

Tory MPs have overturned measures aimed at protecting UK food standards after Brexit – despite signs of some rebels in Boris Johnson’s party. The House of Commons voted 332 votes to 279, majority 53, to disagree with a Lords amendment to the Agriculture Bill which would have required agricultural and food imports to meet domestic […]