Farmers Plead for Universal Basic Income

Farmers Plead for Universal Basic Income.

According to some reports Brexit was the end of EU agriculture subsidies, and farmers have a 'raw deal' under the UK government.

Now a new lobby group is calling for a universal basic income (UBI) for all British farmers. They claim that government funding to primary producers in England, since the UK's departure from the European Union in 2020, is entirely unsatisfactory. The group called BI4 Farmers produced a report which was published last Thursday (4/4/2024). It was rendered in association with the left-wing think tank, Autonomy.

In the foreword titled "Sowing the seeds of stability: the case for a basic income for farmers, farm workers and food producers in the UK", their coordinator Joanna Poulton wrote that "livelihoods in agriculture are often precarious.

"A lack of funded pathways and financial support makes careers in producing food both hard to access and difficult to sustain," she said. According to her financial insecurity has taken a serious toll on farmers in the UK in terms of physical and mental wellbeing. "Finding ways to support these livelihoods will be critical to building the resilient, sustainable, and just local food systems" we need, she added. She believes the answer is a government-supported universal income for farmers.

In the report, the organisation, joined by about 100 farmers so far, has pledged to explore the design and delivery of what Poulton calls a pilot scheme, to collect data on the efficacy of the policy and make the case for systemic change in the financing of farming that is so clearly needed".

Why are farmers struggling in the UK?

Brexit has changed the farming landscape, say campaigners. They contend that farmers in England, the most populous of Britain's four constituent nations and which makes up 53.4 percent of the UK's total landmass, are getting a "raw deal" from the British government.

Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, as devolved jurisdictions, would be responsible for implementing their own schemes.

Poulton told the press that "prior to leaving the EU, many UK farms were essentially kept afloat by EU subsidies". "Eighty percent of the European Union's Common Agricultural Policy was provided through the Basic Payments Scheme which were subsidies granted based upon the area of land kept suitable for grazing or under cultivation. Without these subsidies, between 19 percent and 42 percent of farms would have been unable to break even."

According to the group the UK government's post-Brexit Environmental Land Management Scheme together with Sustainable Farming Incentives the funding schemes being proposed to replace the EU system", "do not provide the same levels of support". The UK Government has rejected these concerns which prompted calls for a farming UBI. Farmers say they have been hard hit by the effects of increased red tape, restrictions on immigration and higher import costs as a result of Brexit. A poll of 900 farmers by Farmers Weekly in May and June 2023 found that 69 percent felt Brexit had been "fairly negative" or "very negative" for their businesses. Vegetable farmers (81 percent) and pig farmers (79 percent) have said they struggled to employ pickers and slaughterhouse workers as a result of Brexit.

What exactly is a UBI? According to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, a UK social change organisation, UBI is "a regular cash payment every individual receives, without any reference to their other income or wealth and without any conditions". UBIs come in various forms and have been trialled in the general population in various parts of the world, such as Canada and the United States. In 2017, the US charity GiveDirectly began a 12-year UBI pilot providing thousands of villagers in Kenya with a cash grant each month. Proponents of the policy argue that it can reduce inequality and improve physical and mental health. But detractors contend that it is simply too costly to implement long-term, particularly nationwide.

How could a UBI work for British farmers?

"Sowing the seeds of stability" highlighted studies which indicated that weekly rates for a "fiscally neutral basic income" £63 for adults aged 18 to 64, £41 for children aged up to 17£ and 190 for those aged 65 and above, can reduce poverty rates significantly, with poverty experienced by working age adults falling by a quarter and by children and pensioners by ov"er a half. In its simplest form, a basic income for farmers would be a regular, unconditional cash payment directly made to farmers and agricultural workers", says the report. It suggests that favourable sources for funding such a programme include the agricultural budgets of the UK government as well as the devolved governments in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

What do farmers say?

Farmers like Alice Rixon, 27, a small vegetable farmer from Dorset, say a lifeline of the UBI kind is essential. "It's very difficult to make ends meet as a farmer within the UK at the moment as we import half our produce and farmers are often only seeing as little as one percent of the profit from the sale of produce," In addition "Brexit has impacted this further through the loss of important subsidies which many farmers had come to rely on as a means of income." As such, a UBI, said Rixon, "would provide farmers with some stability and security". She claims "With stability, farmers would be able to spend farm profits on reinvesting into long-term, environmentally focused improvements to their farms, rather than living year to year and choosing the options that they can afford at the time." To others this just sounds like socialism at its extreme and ask who wants a society where you get paid for doing nothing. -pw- London