The Ulster Farmers’ Union (UFU) will travel with 20 members to London on Monday (17 November) to host an event in Westminster on the proposed reforms to agricultural property relief. The event, ‘Securing the Future of Family Farming in Northern Ireland’, will give members the opportunity to share their lived experience farming in NI with backbench MPs and fears for the future if the proposed IHT changes were to be implemented.
Ahead of the event, UFU president, William Irvine, said, “The Ulster Farmers’ Union have organised an event in Westminster next week which will give 20 members the much-needed platform to speak directly with MPs on the destructive nature of the changes to family farm tax. “The aim is for UFU staff and members to continue translating to MPs the inherently unique nature of our family farms here in Northern Ireland, characterised by high land values, an older demographic of farmers and prevalence of sole-owner livestock-based farms, in a plead for government to urgently change course on their proposals before the upcoming Budget.
“This is a very important opportunity for our members to engage directly, in one room, with those policymakers who are responsible for the Budget decisions that could make or break their future as farmers, dismantling farms which have taken generations of labour to erect and threatening the very fabric of our rural communities,” continued the president.
“We will conduct a range of meetings with politicians the following morning and ultimately do everything we can to keep our farmers at the core of the decisions on the future of NI agriculture because it’s them who will have to face the disproportionate and devastating effects of these proposed changes should they proceed.”
