We were delighted to see a letter from our Chair, Kate O’Sullivan, feature in today’s edition (21/11/2024) of The Times challenging the recent changes to farming inheritance tax rules.
Read on below or visit The Times website here.
Sir, Farmers work on many different levels: as vets, mechanics, welders, carpenters, agronomists, geneticists, accountants, administrators and marketeers. There is no other job that requires such a range of intellectual and practical skills. It is very hard to become one, much easier to be born one. A young farmer can spot a sick ewe by the time they can walk.
Over 70 years, the Exmoor Society has protected a much-loved national park alongside the famers who made it, and are still making it, every day. Families that have been here for hundreds of years hand this knowledge down from generation to generation. The word they use is hefted — it means sheep that know where they belong but also heavy lifting, which in many ways sums farmers up. They make on average £25,000 a year.
They are asset-rich because of the price of land but that is irrelevant because the last thing they want to do is sell it. What most of them want is to go on living here, looking after their animals and land, passing on to their children what to do and how to do it. If we want to keep our beautiful farmed landscapes, farmers need supporting — with better policies, trade deals and supermarket practices — not taxing.
Kate O’Sullivan
Chair of the Exmoor Society
Image: Alexander Schimmeck
