As a former DEFRA Minister, but also as someone who grew up on a family farm, I know how important they are. Yes, they produce food, but they are also the glue for rural communities, create jobs and protect our beautiful countryside.
Now, more than ever, we need our family farmers. Britain’s nature is sadly severely depleted. And if we don’t act soon, nature decline in the UK could mean a 12% hit on the economy, due to the loss of healthy soils which store water and reduce floods, and pollinators which help farmers’ harvests thrive.
I saw first hand, when growing up on a farm, what farmers can do to ensure the food supply and shelter for wildlife. We need these farms to thrive. That means helping them take up the new grants available through the Environmental Land Management Schemes which will pay them to deliver environmental benefits.
It also means protecting small, family farms from inheritance tax. Unfortunately, the changes to Agricultural Property Relief (APR) in Labour’s Budget put them at risk.
Although supposedly designed to tackle large estates, they actually give many a “conditional exemption” because their houses are considered of “national significance”, whilst many hard working average farms will be broken up to pay the tax.
The knock on impact may be that we see the rise of big corporations hoovering up land and managing it intensively, which will sound a further death knell for nature.
Given the UK has legally binding targets to halt nature’s decline by 2030 – which I was proud to introduce whilst in government – the promise of cuts to ELMs and the changes to ARP will be detrimental to our environment.
This is more pressing than ever in the light of the disappointing outcome of the COP16 global nature summit in Colombia which was meant to make progress on implementing the 2022 deal to stop the precipitous decline in biodiversity.
The summit broke up last weekend in confusion with governments failing to reach a consensus on nature funding and how this decade’s targets would be monitored.
There appeared to be a lack of urgency. And there was disappointing leadership from the UK. This rings alarm bells as the global climate summit, COP 29, kicks off in Azerbaijan this week.
Hopes are pinned on negotiating a new goal for climate finance that will support developing countries to transition to a climate-resilient future.
But with climate sceptic President Trump recently re-elected on a climate sceptic agenda and ‘drill, baby, drill’ mantra, this also looks like a super-challenging summit.
So far, the government’s urgency to restore nature at home and abroad is worryingly lacking. This needs to change. They need to help farmers protect nature, put pressure on other countries to act, and show genuine leadership at COP29.
Rebecca Pow is the former Conservative Party Minister for the Environment and Nature
