NFU Conference: what could Steve Reed offer angry farmers?

Farmers may not have been in tanks at this week’s NFU Conference, but its tractors were very much on the government’s lawn.

On Tuesday, a long line of the often noisy vehicles were parked in front of the conference venue, the fortified QEII Centre – just a stone’s throw from the Houses of Parliament, and round the corner from Downing Street, rather than the usual location of Birmingham.

Environment secretary Steve Reed made a chastening appearance that left no doubt about the strength of feeling towards government policy – particularly its hated changes to Inheritance Tax, aka the ‘family farm tax’.

Amid interruption from protestors and angry questions from farmers, Reed was at times left struggling to hold the government’s now increasingly-brittle line on the policy during his speech.

So, what next for farming’s IHT battle? And what did Reed have to offer in his efforts to appease an angry industry?

IHT issue ‘not going away’

Farming unions and associated industry bodies were enraged last week after a long-called-for meeting with the Treasury brought no changes to the tax policy – which will see existing 100% agricultural and business property reliefs cut by half on properties valued over £1m.

A ‘claw-back’ mechanism, which proposed retaining 100% of the reliefs until these assets were sold, was rejected in that meeting by exchequer secretary to the Treasury James Murray.

But farmers will “not give in”, an emotional NFU president Tom Bradshaw told the 700 delegates at the conference. He stressed the union would continue to “fight the family farm tax until ministers do the right thing”.

Bradshaw recounted how some elderly farmers had told him they were considering taking their own lives before April 2026 – when the policy is due to be rolled out – to protect their families from a “farm tax bill they simply cannot afford”, or hadn’t had time to prepare for.

He later told journalists he believed the government knew the policy was “wrong”, but didn’t have the political will to change direction.

And in a direct call to Chancellor Rachel Reeves to meet with the UK’s farming unions – something she is yet to agree to – the NFU head joked “maybe if I offered to meet her in Davos she would be more willing”.

“What the Chancellor has said, is that nobody has offered alternative solutions,” Bradshaw recalled.

“So, last week, all the UK farming unions and other farming organisations took a solution into Treasury, after being summoned to meet ministers,” he said. “And what happened? They simply sent us away, with the sound of a slamming door ringing in our ears. They were not interested. ”

Read more: Farmers won’t go quietly on Inheritance Tax as Reed takes heat at NFU Conference

Bradshaw now wants to widen the NFU’s ‘Stop the Family Farm Tax’ campaign with a fresh emphasis on gaining support “from across the political spectrum” – highlighting the damage the policy could do to the UK’s food security.

“We’ve got to make it more relevant to those inner-city MPs,” he said after his speech.

However, he revealed “I don’t believe we should be more militant” – as some in the farming sector have urged. “We can’t do anything which jeopardises public support. If we lose it, the government don’t have to listen to us.”

Given the pressure on government shows no sign of easing, Bradshaw believes it will ultimately have to “find a political route to try and navigate this”.

That could well have to wait until the autumn statement, he suggested. However, one MP told The Grocer at the conference that Labour backbenchers were becoming increasingly restless and could soon demand concessions, so “watch this space”.

Reed attempts to shift the dial

Defra secretary Reed has gamely attempted to hold the government line on IHT since the changes were announced in the budget on 30 October.

He has stressed the policy is both fair and will impact far fewer farming businesses than the 75% figure suggested by the farming unions and the likes of AHDB.

During the conference, Reed made a raft of policy announcements in a bid to widen the conversation to general improvements in profitability. However, they largely fell on deaf ears.

As one delegate, East Midlands farmer Joe Stanley, put it, IHT was “sucking all the oxygen” out of everything else.

Reed often looked rattled and – in a sign of Defra’s total subservience to the Treasury on the policy – repeatedly apologised, adding he “understood the strength of feeling in the room and in the sector”.

His suggestion farmers should take tax advice to minimise the impact of the policy – seen by delegates as effectively undermining the argument of raising funds for the public purse via the IHT changes – was met with derision. Similar feelings were stoked by his announcement that Defra will set up a new Farming Profitability Unit that would tackle “the deep-rooted problems holding the sector back”. 

One piece of good news came, though, in the belated confirmation of the extension of the Seasonal Worker scheme for another five years – a move welcomed by horticulture growers in particular.

However, it wasn’t a massive coup: the Tories had already committed to a five-year scheme before last year’s election, while many horticulture sector insiders are calling for the scheme to be a rolling arrangement. And from Defra’s messaging around the announcement of “gradually reducing visa numbers as we develop alternative solutions”, it’s clear seasonal workers don’t appear to be a long-term solution for this Labour administration, echoing the views of its predecessors the Tories.

Reed also announced a £110m investment in innovation through initiatives such as a new Farming Equipment & Technology Fund and a Farming Innovation Programme – effectively superseding an undelivered £50m Tory automation commitment made last spring.

Elsewhere, Defra is investing £208m in a new National Biosecurity Centre “to transform” the Animal and Plant Health Agency’s animal health facility at Weybridge, in a bid to improve resilience against animal disease.

And another mention was given to the the ongoing work around the government’s public procurement plan, announced last month. It will mandate that at least 50% of food supplied to public sector catering contracts is from British producers “or those certified to higher environmental standards”.

New specifications have now been drawn up. However, the NFU wants legally-binding targets.

Defra is additionally increasing payment rates for those in existing Higher Level Stewardship agreements, which deliver nature recovery and habitat management. Plus, it’s reopening a capital grant fund – tied to its Environmental Land Management Schemes – in the summer. Worth £45m this year, it had been paused in November and described by Defra as a “vital tool” in enabling farmers to invest in sustainable production.

Supply chain fairness

Reed said those announcements “underpin our 25 Year Farming Roadmap and our food strategy, where we will work with farmers to make farming and food production sustainable and profitable”.

The first workshops start next week. That work will be complemented by a renewed emphasis on supply chain fairness, Reed vowed. Legislation on regulated contracts for the pig sector are due to be laid before Parliament in March, followed by similar legislation for eggs and fresh produce.

Those moves were welcomed by Bradshaw. However, he stressed, as part of the NFU’s own Blueprints for Growth, the Groceries Supply Code of Practice needed to be tweaked to give the Groceries Code Adjudicator powers to include more buyer organisations. Its ‘seven golden rules on fair trading’ should also be legally binding, he added.

More questions surrounded Reed’s commitment to “protect farmers in trade deals”. Bradshaw pointed to a growing farmer backlash against lower-quality imports, while UK farms move to reduce stocking densities for animal welfare purposes in poultry farms by 20% – which has an obvious impact on output and profitability.

“I am fed up with hearing poultry farmers being told by government, supermarkets and others they must reduce their stocking densities, while poultry produced to much lower standards is imported every day,” Bradshaw said.

“That chicken ends up in our ready meals, in our restaurants, in our hospitals and in our schools, undermining the economics of domestic food production,” he added, while taking aim at similar issues such as the government’s ban on neonicotinoids and the new fertiliser tax for UK producers – which is not mirrored in food produced overseas that is imported into the UK. 

“We call on this government to stop the import of food that would be illegal to produce here,” he urged.

Reed argued the malaise the farming sector found itself in stemmed from far wider problems than the “final straw” of IHT. “The underlying problem is that farmers do not make enough money for the hard work and commitment that they put in,” he said.

“It won’t all happen overnight, but we are already making changes.”

Reed promised he would “consider my time as secretary of state a failure if I do not improve profitability for farmers up and down this country”.

Looking at the pressures on the sector, that statement could come back to haunt him.