Strikes, tractor protests and farmfluencers
But is part of the problem that 'rural Britain has never escaped the cultural trappings of feudalism'? Join the debate!
Good morning! I’m Sarah Hartley and this is The Northern Eco weekly update. As you’ve received this newsletter then either you subscribed, or someone forwarded it to you. If the latter, then you can click on this handy little button below.
Many farmers across the north are on strike this week and expected to head to the capital for a mass protest today. Whether food shortages will become noticeable in the supermarkets is not yet obvious but the Nation Farmers Union (NFU) has urged the striking farmers not to withhold food.
Reported at The Northern Farmer, an NFU spokesperson says:
“That is not an NFU tactic, we do not support emptying supermarket shelves, but I do completely understand the strength of feeling that there is amongst farmers, they feel helpless today, and they’re trying to think of what can they do to try and demonstrate what this means to them.”
What is the strike about?
The action by farmers formally started at the weekend with Welsh farmers taking a convoy of tractors to a conference where Prime Minister Keir Starmer was speaking. A small protest was held in Northumberland last week too.
Protest was sparked by a Budget announcement that inheritance tax at 20% will become due on farms and land valued at more than £1m.
Treasury data shows that around three-quarters of farmers will pay nothing in inheritance tax as a result of the controversial changes announced in the Budget last month.
However, farmers have challenged the figures, pointing instead to data from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs which suggests 66% of farm businesses are worth more than the £1 million threshold at which inheritance tax will now need to be paid.
And at the weekend on BBC Politics North, Mike Starkie, the Conservative former mayor of Copeland in Cumbria, said the changes present “an existential threat to farmers, to the rural way of life.”
The impact of farmfluencers
Today’s visually striking images from the tractor protest in London will undoubtedly be beamed around the world but the impact of the action will be in no small part due to the emergence of farmfluencers on social media.
As James Tapper writes in The Observer, the 1,800 farmers going to Parliament to lobby MPs in set-piece events will be dwarfed by the tens of thousands expected to gather near Downing Street: “marshalled by a new breed of farming influencers who have used their social media clout to turn rural discontent into urban action.”
Those influencers on social media include North Yorkshire’s Rebecca Wilson who posts mostly on Instagram and TikTok as we featured a couple of weeks ago.
But it could be that younger farmers are the ones to benefit from the tax changes according to Will Hutton in The Observer. In a long read titled: Farmers have hoarded land for too long. Inheritance tax will bring new life to rural Britain, he argues that “part of the problem is that rural Britain has never escaped the cultural trappings of feudalism.”
“Young farmers, now increasingly crowded out of the market, will get a chance to buy land: there is the prospect of a levelling off, even a fall, in farm rents. New life and ideas will be brought to the rural economy as innovative, energetic farmers enter the market – and production even increases.”
Wdyt? I’d love to hear your thoughts so please do feel free to comment below, vote in the poll or drop me a line. This is an issue that’s set to run and run……
In water news
💦 Bentham residents - the UK town with the country’s highest identified concentration of “forever chemicals” - have instructed lawyers to investigate the possibility of a first-of-its-kind legal claim, reports Pippa Neill in The Guardian.
💦 Last week’s reader poll on fluoridation of water showed that more people didn’t want to have the chemical added to drinking water (40%) than did (30%). However, 30% of the people who voted said they would appreciate more information on the topic, so it’s an issue we will return to in a future issue. North Yorkshire councillors failed to debate the issue of fluoridation at last week’s full council meeting. The chairperson, Councillor Roberta Swiers, withdrew the motion to discuss the issue saying that the debate had been aired previously.
💦 Save Our Swale (SOS) campaigners have arranged for a seminar at Richmond Town Hall from 1.30-4.00pm on Sunday, 24th November which is open to all. The seminar will share SOS achievements to date, discuss objectives for 2025 and present the full year's Water Quality Monitoring sampling data.
💦 United Utilities is fighting a legal battle to block public access to data on treated sewage it is discharging into Windermere in the Lake District, Jon Ungoed-Thomas at The Guardian reports.
💦 Robyn Vintner at The Guardian has followed up on the story we first flagged back in September saying a “rescue mission” for native crayfish is under way in Northumberland after a population were found dead with mysterious patches on their shells.
The three most clicked links from last week were:
POLL: Would you prefer to have fluoride added to your water?
Second set of River Ure tests reveal "dramatic rise" in E-coli
Plans for Doncaster to become home to first UNSECO biosphere reserve in the north of England
In other news
“Joining up the dots between multiple man-made crises and current UK asylum policy is crucial, and this month’s demonstration at the IRC will focus on these links.”
🌏 The campaign group against Derwentside Immigration Removal Centre (IRC) marked the Global Day of Action for Climate Justice - North East Bylines explains the connection of ‘climate refugees’.
🦫 Beavers and turtle doves could be reintroduced to Castle Howard Estate in North Yorkshire as part of a large-scale 30-year restoration and rewilding project, writes Karen Darley of the York Press.
🏭 Already over eight per cent of the UK’s waste is burnt on Teesside and a much larger incinerator has been proposed at Redcar to take waste from across the North East. In this column for the D&S, Climate Action Stokesley ask if there are greener alternatives?
🌿 A property developer has supported moves to create a city’s first botanical garden for a century by donating a seven-metre greenhouse to University of Leeds, writes Steven Hugill at Bdaily.
💨 A Hull factory has won a £1bn contract to supply wind turbine blades, reports Mark Page at the Hull Daily Mail who says the site will manufacture blades for 64 turbines at ScottishPower's upcoming East Anglia TWO offshore wind farm, which is projected to generate sufficient clean energy to supply nearly a million homes.
🗑️ In the last 12 months 37 fixed penalty notices have been issued for littering in North Yorkshire, while 43 had been imposed for fly-tipping. Calvin Robinson at The Stray Ferret has more.
🌏 A Liverpool city councillor, Liam Robinson, is the only non-world leader to be offered a speaking role at international climate conference COP29 in Baku, reports David Humphreys at the Liverpool Echo.
🌳 POSTPONED: North Yorkshire Councillors failed to debate the Climate and Nature Bill we flagged in last week’s newsletter and will now consider it in February.
We’ll be back next week with this month’s reading recommendations from Claire and Alan from The Wonky Tree alongside the latest news.
If you’re around tomorrow morning, maybe I’ll see you at this free social business coffee break online: How to be brilliant at reducing your carbon footprint. Register here.
Have a great week!
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I don't understand why farmers should be treated differently from the rest of us as far as inheritance tax is concerned. One of the reasons given is that they produce food. But that's their job! And as to them being 'guardians of the countryside', another trope, I don't see much evidence of that. Polluted rivers, feed bags all over the place, illegal burning of rubbish, tractor tyres piled up in yards. I could go on.
I understand that farmers have had a hard time of late but I think they're hitting out in the wrong place. They're sqeezed by the supermarkets because we're used to cheap food and don't want to pay for good, British produce. Our mindset needs to change. Farmers should be paid properly for their produce and rewarded for farming in and environmentally-friendly way. And we should be prepared to pay the price.