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Rishi Sunak will seek to win back British farmers on Tuesday ahead of the general election expected later this year, pledging the government “will be by their side” as a recent poll suggests the ruling Conservatives are losing support in their traditional rural strongholds.
The prime minister will use an unexpected appearance at the National Farmers’ Union annual conference to acknowledge the economic pressures the sector is facing and pledge to improve fairness in the supply chain.
Sunak will announce a £220mn fund to help farmers improve productivity, part of the £2.4bn the government has said it would spend annually on farming by the end of this parliament.
“Farming is going through its biggest change in a generation. And as farmers do so, this government will be by their side,” Sunak will say. He will also announce plans to publish an annual “food security index” to help ensure the UK can maintain food production at current levels.
Sunak’s intervention comes a week after a survey suggested that support for the Conservatives had collapsed in the countryside since the last election. The governing party won 96 of the 100 most rural seats in England in 2019 but is on track to lose more than half of those to Labour and the Liberal Democrats, according to a poll by Survation, commissioned by the Country Land and Business Association.
Farmers have been struggling with dwindling margins, squeezed by record high fuel, fertiliser and feed costs, since Russia’s full-blown invasion of Ukraine. Many farmers have said they are unable to turn a profit, let alone reinvest to boost productivity. Over 6,000 agricultural businesses have closed since 2017, according to the Office for National Statistics.
The government’s post-Brexit agricultural policy has been a particular source of rancour in farming communities. Farmers were promised they would be big winners if the UK left the EU. But many complain they are receiving less support than when the UK was part of the bloc with the new subsidy system incentivising farmers to take land out of food production.
There is also growing concern in Whitehall that British farmers could emulate their counterparts in the EU, where months of widespread and highly disruptive demonstrations won them extensive concessions from Brussels.
So far British farmers have kept their protests — targeting the low prices they are paid by food processors and retailers and cheap imports from recent trade deals — relatively low-key.
Labour has accused the government of undermining farmers. “They put up trade barriers that blocked food exports and let energy bills soar out of control, crippling producers and putting thousands out of business,” said shadow environment minister Steve Reed.
But the main opposition party recently sparked a backlash among some rural communities after vowing a full ban on trail and drag hunting, closing what it considers a loophole in the Hunting Act.
