FERMANAGH farmers found their voice at the weekend, when hundreds took part in huge tractor protest against changes to inheritance tax.
Setting off at 2pm on Saturday from the Farmers’ Mart on the Old Tempo Road in Enniskillen, the huge convoy made its way up through the county town, as part of a day of demonstration by farmers across the North.
The Enniskillen event was one of seven similar protests in other towns and cities, including in Omagh and Armagh.
Leading the Fermanagh farmers was Tempo’s Andrew Little.
A second-generation dairy farmer with a young family, he is deeply concerned about the introduction of a cap on Agricultural Propert Relief (APR), which could see inheritance tax soar for many families.
“We’re at the mercies of Mother Nature,” Mr Little told the BBC.
“We have a bad year of weather, it crucifies us, but we always get through,” he added.
“But this here, we can’t get through it because if you have a tax of maybe two or three hundred thousand pound, that’s two grand a month for 10 years and that could hit two generations in the one farm in a very short space of time.”
The introduction of the APR cap means farms valued at over £1 million are liable for inheritance tax of 20 percent.
However, many farmers have noted that valuation is often over-inflated and includes assets such as their family home and expensive but necessary farm equipment.
As Mr Little put it, many are “asset-rich but cash-poor” and would not be able to afford such a high tax bill.
“We have assets worth hundreds of thousands of pounds and millions of pounds,” he said, speaking to the BBC.
“In a good year we may yield 0.5 percent or one percent profit, whereas most other businesses out there are running at 10 percent, 15 percent or maybe even more of a profit of their asset worth,” he said.
“Could you go and ask the farmer to write a cheque for 10 percent of what he’s worth? He probably can’t.”
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