Farmer protests - revolt

We had some posts about protests in France and (IIRC, Belgium?) but it seems to be a larger European phenomenon so probably deserves a dedicated thread...

You will probably have to translate this to read it.

How the FNSEA is fighting to remain the leading agricultural union​

« Unlike some, our goal is not to starve people, it's to feed them. We are not going to block France. But promises must be kept. » After calling on his farmer members to mobilize from next Monday to oppose Mercosur in particular, the president of the FNSEA, Arnaud Rousseau, promises: even if the months follow one another on the front of the agricultural malaise, they will not be alike on the front of the demonstrations. At least initially.

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Big changes in the 2024 Budget have led to real anger on UK family farms. What's going on?​

Nov 6, 2024

In last week's Budget, the new Labour Government introduced revised tax rates for Inheritance Tax. From April 2026, the 100% Agricultural Property relief will only be on the first £1,000,000, after that the rate will be 20%. This video explains why this is going to be so damaging to UK family farms.

18:27

Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@harrysfarmvids

The Attack on Farmers Is a Symptom of a Corrupt Banking and Money System.​

Nov 20, 2024 #farmerprotest #tax #government

26:38

Hey @rblong2us - what are you hearing locally about any protests over there? Did the protest suggested in the tweet in the OP actually materialize?

Yes
really big turnout of country folk, who flooded Whitehall and the area around Downing Street on Tuesday.
Jeremy Clarkson ( headline speaker ) was a bit of a wet rag but he was apparently struggling with covid like man flu.

The farming community finally start to see that the gov doesnt like them but still generally unable to see that their way of life is totally under threat from WEF type thinking ie rewilding rather than food production and massive tarrifs on nitrates etc.
They arent yet ready to protest the whole big picture threat, just worried that its not possible to pass on a family farm without selling off a chunk of it and who would buy it anyway ?
Ironically, the price of land ( avg £10 000 an acre) is substantially held up because of the IHT break on family farms . Most wealthy folk see an easy way to transfer wealth to the next generation and have effectively bit up prices by buying farms . Theres no way a youngster could borrow to buy a farm and make it pay, so its all messed up.
Average age of a UK farmer is over 60 and rising ........

Related.

@rblong2us - is there a consumer revolt brewing over there?


The comments/replies to that post hint at some issue with big dairy using some Bill Gates favored additive to reduce cow methane or something like that. It's not exactly clear to me what the issue is.

No consumer revolt in Blighty as far as I am aware .
But I am not very in touch with what uk consumers are doing and thinking.
I shop in the evening when there’s no traffic and am simply grateful / relieved that everything I need is still available .

The owner of Danish butter brand Lurpak has defended its recently-announced trial to add a methane-suppressing supplement into cow feed as calls to boycott the brand continue.

Arla Foods, which owns the UK’s biggest dairy co-operative, announced the initiative aimed at tackling climate-heating methane emissions produced by cows during digestion.

The firm is working alongside Morrisons, Aldi and Tesco on the project, which will trial the use of feed additive Bovaer across 30 British farms.

Research suggests the supplement can reduce methane emissions from cows’ digestion by an average of 27%, but questions remain over such additives’ long-term effectiveness and impact on animal health and welfare.

Swathes of British shoppers on Friday joined an online storm calling for a boycott of Arla brands, especially Lurpak, with several accusing it of going “woke”.
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One of the largest dairy producers in Norway has now STOPPED giving their cows the methane suppressant Bovaer.

This is a major development.

The two largest dairy producers in Norway, Tine and Q-Meieriene began using Bovaer already in 2023 to make their cows fart less and reduce climate emissions.

They began to sell this as ”climate milk” in the stores. However, this was not popular at all with consumers. So guess what happened?

The dairy producer Tine stopped selling their climate milk, and instead just put it together with the normal milk without telling anyone. So people are now getting milk from cows being fed a TOXIC chemical without even knowing.

I have seen reports that supermarkets in Norway have been struggling to sell the milk from cows being fed Bovaer, forcing them to sell at heavily reduced prices. Meanwhile the Bovaer free milk has been flying off the shelves.
...
But the good news is that the other big dairy producer in Norway, Q-Meieriene have announced that they are completely stopping the use of Bovaer in their cows after consumers boycotted this ”climate milk”.

”Demand for Q climate milk has not been high enough to continue production...since the Q climate milk is no longer for sale, we phased out the use of methane suppresants in cow feed and are putting this project on pause” said the chief of the company.
...

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Haven't heard much about this in a while, nor do I know what's going on in Europe. Came across this, thought it interesting so.........

Farmers! Is the NFU really worth £36m a year?​

Monday-Tuesday blog

I’m still annoyed with the National Farmers Union (NFU). A week or so ago, I emailed two people in the NFU media department with a link to an article I wrote for The Conservative Woman website. In the article, I showed how the inheritance tax on farmers wasn’t really intended to raise much money to cover the supposed £22bn black hole in the public finances which Starmer and Reeves apparently discovered about five minutes after Labour had been elected forcing Labour to raise the taxes which five minuites earlier Labour had promised not to raise.

In the article, I showed how investment company Aberdeen had launched its FLAG (Forestry, Land and Agriculture) strategy but had been frustrated in its attempts to buy up agricultural land due to much of the land being owned by family farmers. So Aberdeen paid for a report on Britain’s tax system by left-wing think tank, Demos. Surprise surprise, one of the key recommendations of the Demos report was to impose inheritance tax on farmers. Given that many farmers are ‘asset rich but cash poor’ this would have forced many farms to sell off land to pay the inheritance tax thus allowing what Aberdeen called ‘purely financial owners’ like Aberdeen to buy up the land. To help push through this policy Aberdeen managed to get their head honcho onto a task force of business leaders invited in October 2023 to advise Rachel Reeves on what she should be doing when Labour inevitably won the July 2024 general election.

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Apparently they are protesting again today?

^^^ they shoulda brought their manure spreaders with them.

Joe King said:

^^^ they shoulda brought their manure spreaders with them.

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How about fire trucks with powerful pumps and manure mixers?

Someone_else said:

How about fire trucks with powerful pumps and manure mixers?

Click to expand...

That'll work.


Any time I see farmers protesting, it always makes me think of this.

Farming leaders’ fury as Treasury stands firm on inheritance tax change​

Agricultural leaders left a meeting with the Treasury with “boiling blood” after the Government faced down their arguments to rethink proposed changes to inheritance tax on farms.

Exchequer Secretary James Murray and farming minister Daniel Zeichner spoke to representatives of the National Farmers’ Union (NFU), the Tenant Farmers Association (TFA), the Country Land and Business Association (CLA) and the Central Association of Agricultural Valuers (CAAV) in Westminster on Tuesday morning.

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https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/com...S&cvid=33cdf1d15ade4ac6de297aff4934075e&ei=14

Thousands of farms shutting as industry braces for inheritance tax raid​

Thousands of farms are already disappearing as the industry braces for Rachel Reeves’s inheritance tax raid to take effect in April.

Twice as many agricultural businesses are closing down as are opening, according to analysis of Office for National Statistics (ONS) data by Cynergy Bank, as the gulf between company deaths and births widens.

More:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/tax...S&cvid=a8390341254140bd90236a6a87e77a21&ei=39

Related.

‘I inherited my family home – now I’m being extorted by the council’​

When her parents passed away four years ago, Alison Pether chose to keep their home – a decision she knows they would have loved.

The 59-year-old mother of two has carefully preserved the property so it feels “they have just popped out for the day” and relishes being able to visit the seaside town where she grew up.

But, from April 1, her council tax bill on the home in Gosport, Hampshire, will swell to £6,500 a year. Now, she fears she may be forced to sell.

She is one of dozens of readers who have contacted Telegraph Money to complain they are being “extorted” by punitive council tax bills on their inherited homes.

More:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/rea...S&cvid=25dcf677d44448b59d375ca2700aeaca&ei=48