AS farmers continue to digest the inheritance tax announcement in last week’s budget, fears are growing for the entire future of the local industry.
Indeed, many believe the introduction of a 20 per-cent tax on combined business and agricultural assets above £1million will spell the end of generational farming, particularly in rural parts of the North.
Fermanagh and Omagh Cllr Sheamus Greene is a small farmer.
He explained how many local family farms may be worth more than £1million on paper, but the farm families themselves are far from cash rich.
“Family farms have gradually got slightly bigger over the last 50 years or so, to be able to actually compete in any way,” he said.
“A hill farm with 200 acres could, depending on the area and the land and when you take in equipment and everything, easily be worth a million, million-and-a-half, possibly more.
“What people who are not from an agricultural background fail to understand, that’s a family farm that is supposed to be able to be passed down from generation-to-generation to secure our food security, so that we’re not dependent on entirely foreign imports.
“Farmers might be asset rich, but their income isn’t – they could be working on minimum wage levels.
“To expect them then to come up with hundreds of thousands to pay inheritance tax is not going to happen.
“My fear around this is it’s actually going to be the last generation of generational farmers handing on from one to another.”
He added, “What I can possibly see is a lot of farms, when this bill hits them, sell up and think, ‘why am I working my entire lifetime, but I can’t hand on 20 per-cent of what I built?’.
“It’s going to be worth less value, and less land will be handed on to the next generation and they’ll not be able to compete whatsoever.
“The next generation, I would think, is going to end up selling the land.”
Cllr Greene added the tax changes will disproportionately impact farmers here in the North, as the vast majority in England and Scotland are tenant farmers who do not own their land.
“I keep saying I’m not a conspiracy theorist, but in the last couple of years I am genuinely starting to doubt myself in that,” said the Coonian councillor.
“The out-workings of this is that big companies are going to be able to come in, they’re going to buy up the land, and use it to offset the carbon their companies are producing, and the land is going to be bought up and not used for agriculture anymore.
“I see it in my own area: A lot of farms are now being bought by people from England.”
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