Whole sections of UK farming will be wiped out if the Government presses ahead with proposals to slash £1 billion from the agriculture support budget, MP Ian Liddell-Grainger has warned.
He is writing to Environment Secretary Steve Barclay warning of dire and irreversible consequences if the measure is approved.
And, he said the Government must be utterly deaf to what is going on in the world of food production to even contemplate bringing the legislation forward.
The NFU has already sounded the alarm bells over the proposal, due to be debated in the Commons on Monday.
The cuts would reduce support to small farms by 50 per cent and to larger farms by up to 70 per cent compared with what they were receiving in 2020.
NFU president Tom Bradshaw has warned that coming on top of the wettest 18 months since 1836, volatile input prices and continuing low returns from the market the move would reduce farm cashflow to a ‘critical level’.
Meanwhile Mr Liddell-Grainger, MP for Bridgwater and West Somerset, said every farmer in the country would view the proposals with dread.
“Unfortunately because the debate was only recently announced I cannot be in the House to speak against this measure but I am writing to Mr Barclay setting out my views - and they are that I am absolutely outraged the Government is being so stupid as to even contemplate this,” he said.
The Government is gradually tapering the direct support farmers used to get under European farming policy. Ministers have claimed farmers will be no worse off because they will be able to claim payments under various environmental management schemes.
But, said Mr Liddell-Grainger, that was disingenuous.
“Many of them come with investment costs, such as with tree planting,” he said.
“So effectively the net value of the support payments is far less than is being claimed.
“That apart the long-term policy of tapering the payments is one that was decided upon in far different circumstances. We hadn’t then been hit by the extremes of weather which now appear to be the new normal and in the light of which we cannot carry on slavishly adhering to old ideas.
“This year farmers have been hit by the perfect storm of increased prices and an anticipated disastrous fall in income because of the havoc wreaked by the weather.
“Harvest yields are looking bleak and there are already warnings of food shortages and price rises in the shops. All the Government is going to achieve by bulldozing ahead with a catastrophic cut in direct support is to make both those outcomes ever more certain.
“Ministers need to understand that British farming is in mortal danger.”
