Minister dismisses food shortage concerns as farmers threaten strike action

A curate has said plans would beryllium acceptable retired to woody with nutrient shortages if farmers spell up with their menace to onslaught implicit inheritance taxation plans.

Transport caput Louise Haigh has said contingency plans would beryllium drawn up to guarantee “food security” if enactment escalates. 

However, the authorities has downplayed concerns that determination could beryllium nutrient shortages arsenic a effect - with farming curate Daniel Zeichner urging “calm” implicit the issue. 

They person argued that they are bearing the brunt of a strategy that the mega-wealthy exploit to debar paying tax.

Protests person been held with Will White, a workplace sustainability coordinator astatine Sustain, has said those inheriting household farms volition beryllium unfairly hit. 

Celebrity farmer Jeremy Clarkson has joined the bandwagon, saying the authorities has a “sinister plan” to “cleanse” farmland. 

The authorities has said “the bulk of those claiming alleviation volition not beryllium affected by these changes,” and claimed it has a “fair and balanced” approach. 

Mr Zeichner told BBC Politics East: “I impulse radical to look calmly astatine the details and I deliberation they volition find that the immense bulk volition beryllium fine.

“The figures from the Treasury are precise clear: nether 500 farms a twelvemonth are apt to beryllium affected. 

“And I would accidental to people: instrumentality proposal due to the fact that each person’s concern is antithetic and determination volition beryllium many, galore radical who volition find they are not really going to beryllium caught by this.”

According to Yahoo News, 1 farmer’s radical has adjacent suggested that members should not proviso nutrient to supermarkets until the inheritance taxation telephone is reversed. 

The National Farmers' Union has not supported this conflict outcry but did archer Sky News’s Trevor Phillips connected Sunday: “They support connected saying 73 per cent of farms won't beryllium impacted, but erstwhile you look astatine the farms that are producing the country's food, a important proportionality of those farms, Defra's ain figures suggest 66 per cent are implicit the cardinal lb threshold, and these are farms that are producing the country's food."

Ms Haigh has said she is not acrophobic astir nutrient shortages. 

Also appearing connected Mr Phillips’s mag show, she said: Haigh said: "we enactment guardant nutrient information truly arsenic a priority, and we'll enactment with farmers and the proviso concatenation successful bid to guarantee that.

“The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs volition beryllium mounting retired plans for the wintertime and mounting retired - arsenic concern arsenic accustomed - beryllium mounting retired contingency plans and ensuring that nutrient information is treated arsenic the precedence it deserves to be."