The Conservatives in government have betrayed Britain’s farmers – farmers who form the backbone of rural communities, who play a vital role in our fight against climate change and who are essential to food security.

Farmers’ incomes have been significantly reduced (hill farm incomes have fallen by 41% since 2019) and their standards have been undermined by weak trade agreements. Conservatives negotiated.

Before last week, many of the farmers I spoke to here in Westmorland were increasingly worried about their future and desperately needed certainty from the new Labor Government regarding financial support.

And then came the budget.

Rather than giving our farmers the support they have been demanding to profitably and sustainably produce the food on our plates, Labor has instead decided to introduce a tax increase which, farmers fear, risks spelling doom. the death knell for family farms in this country.

Their changes to farm ownership assistance and their acceleration of phasing out basic payments will lead more farms across our country to make the terrifying decision to fold up and close their doors.

The government risks making the same mistakes as the Conservatives by neglecting farmers and failing to provide them with the support they desperately need. The government is reassuring that these changes will only affect wealthy farmers and that small family farms will be protected. How wrong they are!

Have no doubt: There are many farmers living on less than minimum wage each year, but whose property will be affected by these changes.

Family farmers’ livelihoods hang by a thread as the government continues this disastrous policy – without providing the agricultural budget with the cash boost it desperately needs.

Without farmers, we will lose our ability to feed ourselves as a country.

And without farmers, the best environmental policies and plans will just be pieces of paper in a drawer, with no one on the ground to implement them.

That’s why Liberal Democrats proudly support the campaign to save Britain’s family farms.