Sheffield-based milk supplier Our Cow Molly has become the first food brand to carry the NFU’s ‘Stop the Family Farm Tax’ messaging on its products, and urged other food businesses to follow its lead.
The brand, which sells its milk through independents, universities, Morrisons and Co-op stores in the city and its surroundings, this week joined the NFU’s battle against the government’s proposed changes to Inheritance Tax liabilities for farm businesses. It is stickering 10,000 milk cartons with the campaign’s messaging in a bid to raise awareness of the issue and seek public support.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ budget IHT reforms – via changes to agricultural and business property reliefs – led to a series of protests in the run-up to Christmas.
Farmers argue an end to 100% relief on property worth more than £1m will devastate the sector, despite the government’s claim other mitigations mean many farmers could still avoid paying IHT on properties worth up to £3m.
Our Cow Molly owner Eddie Andrew said the policy changes would have a “massive impact” on his family business, which had recently decided to modernise and build a new barn to accommodate milking robots and an anaerobic digester to capture methane.
The business had also installed a solar roof, as part of its work to contribute to climate change mitigation, all on the back of pre-election promises. However, the government’s slurry support grant, to improve slurry storage to aid environmental protection, was also now on hold, creating more stress and uncertainty for the family, he said.
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“We’ve got a ginormous bank loan to pay off due to these investments and now possibly IHT to consider. We’d be well over the threshold to get taxed if this goes ahead, and if it does, we may as well start to wind down now,” said Andrew, who runs Sheffield’s last dairy farm to bottle and distribute milk.
“The changes proposed are huge, both devastating financially to us and other farmers,” he added. “We can’t abandon building the new barn, which is needed for our herds and our work to produce renewal energy, or not pay the bank loan to build it, so we are in an impossible position.”
There were many unintended consequences to the Treasury’s IHT proposals, and they could ultimately kill off many family farms, Andrew warned.
“As a local supplier of milk, we wanted to get involved with this, bringing the campaign to the breakfast table and every cup of tea or coffee when folk reach for the milk throughout the day.”
A QR code on the stickers takes consumers to the NFU’s campaign page. The wider national campaign also includes roadside and gate banners and stickers, designed to be “highly visible in key political constituencies”, the NFU said, and aimed to “keep public attention and build political pressure on the devastating impact these changes would have on farming families and rural communities”.
A ‘Day of Unity’ by the NFU is being planned for 25 January, with a series of nationwide events in protest at the IHT changes. The NFU this week also launched a pledge for businesses to sign in support of the campaign.
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“For the future of our industry and for vital growth in the economy, I urge all businesses associated with agriculture to sign our pledge to show the government it is not too late to review plans and consider the unintended consequences of changes to APR and BPR on our sector and the wider economy,” said NFU president Tom Bradshaw.
“Changes to inheritance tax must be paused and consulted on,” he urged, adding the proposals were “unjust and based on flawed data”.
It comes as Morrisons head of agriculture Sophie Throup posted a video on social media last weekend expressing the supermarket’s support for the farming sector.
“We understand your anger and frustrations at the Inheritance Tax changes and we’re with you,” she said. “We share your concerns about the long-term impact [the changes] are going to have on farms, particularly smaller, family farms, and we know you want something done about it.”
Morrisons had been “raising these concerns at the highest levels of government since November and we will continue to do so”, Throup stressed.
The government has thus far stood firm on the proposals, with Defra secretary Steve Reed merely stating the government would “continue to keep listening” on the issue at last week’s Oxford Farming Conference.
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