Farmers protesting against the Government’s new inheritance tax proposals could be at risk of losing crucial public support, the organic pioneer and farming campaigner Guy Singh Watson has said. 

Speaking on the BBC’s World at One programme, the Riverford founder and organiser of the Farmers Against Farmwashing campaign, said that he was “broadly in favour of what the Government is proposing on IHT”. 

He told the BBC’s Sarah Montague: “We do need to raise finance to rebuild our country, to have a functioning NHS, for transport, to fund the green transition. I think the Government could have set the threshold a bit higher. And personally, instead of it going to a 50% discount, I think farmers who are inheriting £7 million plus should pay 40%, the same as anyone else. An awful lot of people across the country are in pretty desperate financial circumstances and they don’t have these options open to them – and I think farmers need to be mindful of that. If you’re a different type of business operator, say you run a bakery, you’re not a beneficiary of those types of breaks. 

“I’m really worried that the unintentional effect of the (IHT) protests is that they  undermine the really tremendous support that farmers have in this country, by falling in line with the likes of Jeremy Clarkson. Who talks about ethnic cleansing of the countryside! I really don’t know how he can get away with that.”

Singh Watson said that the rocketing price of land was the biggest block to new farmers getting into the sector. “I would much rather have seen Rachel Reeves go after the 10 to 100-fold increase in land prices that happen when planning permission is granted. I think that would have raised perhaps 10 times as much money. Land is three times the price it was in 2000, and that has effectively excluded new entrants who don’t have the benefit of the wealth of their parents. And speculation-driven land inflation is contributing to the very low returns in agriculture.

For the last two years Singh Watson has been leading the Farmers Against Farmwashing campaign, which sets out to expose supermarket ‘fake farms’. “The reason that so many farmers are having it so tough is that they don’t get paid a fair price for their produce by the supermarkets.”

“If we want food security we need to have a proper agricultural policy, and ensure farmers are paid proper prices”

Questioned on claims that the government’s inheritance tax plan threatens national food security, Singh Watson said: “That’s just a ridiculous argument. Someone will farm the land. If we want food security we need to have a proper agricultural policy, and ensure farmers are paid proper prices.”