Yorkshire farm Inheritance tax protests: Determination but morale in farm sector is ‘at a low ebb’

He added the change would mean parents could not pass on their farm to their children, that families would have to sell land they have farmed for generations and see tenant farmers evicted.

“So, we must strengthen our food security here at home. That means backing you – our farmers –not taxing you off the land because we all know that no farmers means no food.”

The attack came as Shadow Farming Minister Robbie Moore used a visit to the Yorkshire Agricultural Machinery Show at York Auction Mart to accuse the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs of propagating low confidence in the sector. He said slashing capital grant funding for schemes ranging from hedgerow planting to water improvements, de-linked payments cut was impacting on farms’ cashflow.

He said: “This is a government not on side with the farmer at all. That’s before we start talking about other budgetary challenges with the increase in employers’ National Insurance, minimum wage increases, the double cab pick-up tax, the fertiliser tax and the implications of Agricultural and Business Property Relief being slashed.”

Numerous farmers and businesses at the show said agriculture, and in particular the arable sector, was at a low ebb.

Levels of mental wellbeing among farmers have been falling over the past four years, with the government's inheritance tax proposals adding to the pressure, according to the Farm Safety Foundation, which is running its Mind Your Head campaign to raise awareness of the industry's poor mental health.

It said since the budget, levels of uncertainty and anxiety had increased, as well as rising concerns about an uncertain future for the industry and UK food production.

Exhibiting at the show, Yorkshire Steel Buildings director Jonathon Jessop said the consequences of the financial situation facing farmers was being felt across a far wider area than agriculture.

After speaking to the Shadow Minister, Graham Liddle, a third generation arable farmer at Cawood said his confidence had taken a huge hit with the government’s tax proposals and had left him facing “working ten years for nothing”.

He said: “I find it very frustrating that we were in a reasonable position where the business could be passed on. We have been thrown under the bus. We probably will be able to survive, but it won’t be pleasant.”

Skipton-on-Swale farmer Phil Wise said Labour MP for York Rachel Maskell was due to attend a Back British Farming tractor rally being staged outside York Minster today.

The rally, which will see a procession from Museum Gardens and through the city centre, follows comes as MPs debating an e-petition with more than 148,000 signatures calling to keep the current inheritance tax exemptions for working farms.

In response, Government ministers have insisted they will not make a U-turn on proposals to levy 20 per cent inheritance tax rate on farms worth more than £1 million from April next year.