Farming under threat
18 December 2024
Farmers continue to campaign against tax changes and other threats to farming. This focuses attention on food production and the condition of our countryside.
Agriculture
Agriculture
Food for the People
Food for the People
Wednesday 5 March 2025 19:30
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Wednesday 5 March 2025, 7.30 pm
Bertrand Russell Room, Conway Hall, Red Lion Square, London WC1R 4RL
Britain’s farmers have drawn attention to the threat to our food security posed by capitalism. Our land is taken over by speculators and taken out of production. What we eat and how it is produced affects us all.
Come and discuss. All welcome. Free entry.
Food: Huge drop in farm income
Farm incomes are falling, posing a threat to Britain’s food security. Official figures for England show a 19 per cent drop last year in the total income from farming to £4.5 billion.
Food security: capitalism's neglect, workers' priority
Food security: capitalism's neglect, workers' priority
Tuesday 4 June 2024 19:00
The production and supply of safe, nutritious and affordable food is all our concern. Capitalism has no plan or vision to feed the people. How can workers in agriculture and elsewhere put this right?
Come and discuss. Email info@cpbml.org.uk for an invitation.
British farming under attack
24 February 2024
British farmers are under attack from capitalism. They are starting to defend their industry – and our food supply. Without that we can’t be an independent nation.
Welsh farmers up in arms
Farmers are not impressed with losing 20 per cent of their land from food production, and protests have been growing.
Scottish farmers make gains
21 February 2024
Scottish farmers have won a significant victory in their struggle for survival. They have secured continuing support for food production, halting the move to environmental payments.
European Union: Farmers flex their power [print version]
After years of simmering discontent, farmers’ protests are spreading across EU member countries.
European farmers demand a future
9 February 2024
Farmers’ protests are spreading across the EU. They are taking to the roads to demand that the EU supports food production.
Food shortages: Britain needs a plan
27 February 2023
Capitalism can’t feed us. Shortages of tomatoes and salad vegetables are symptomatic of wider problems in farming.
How long before Brexit is really done?
While the EU is increasingly devoid of direction and entangled in debt, the government is reluctant to take the steps needed to secure British independence…
Vaccines plan in tatters
During the pandemic the government promised strategic investment. Now it’s walking away from it…
SNP tries to block gene editing progress
The Scottish government intends to block the deployment of gene-edited crops even if the proposed new legislation on gene editing applies to the whole of the UK.
Oh so slow: sovereignty at a snail’s pace
18 May 2022
The Queen’s Speech signalled progress on Brexit-won freedoms to boost the use of new gene editing techniques in agriculture. But it’s taking precious years to get anything done.
Greenwashing in Wales
Green initiatives are not always what they seem – as Welsh farmers, along with others across Britain, are finding out to their cost.
Biodiversity Net Gain – beware false promises
Biodiversity policy creates risks for our food security. It sounds good but is not really about protecting the environment. By putting a market value on nature, it will take land out of production.
Keep land for food
Keep land for food
Tuesday 12 April 2022 19:00
The prime purpose of agriculture should be to feed the people. Instead, the government’s targets for agriculture are about everything except food.
Email info@cpbml.org.uk for an invitation.
ELM explained…
There are three elements to the Environmental Management Scheme, which applies to England.
What is farmland for?
Food production is a public good. And it's time to end the false division between food production and nature conservation...
Farmland power grab [print version]
A plan to build a huge solar farm on prime agricultural land on the border of Lincolnshire and Rutland is being challenged by an impressive local campaign group determined to fight it all the way.
Campaigners fight to protect farmland from power grab
13 February 2022
A plan to build a huge solar farm on prime agricultural land is being challenged by an impressive local campaign group determined to fight it all the way.
Agriculture policy under fire
13 January 2022
A parliamentary committee has indicted the government for an agriculture policy that will see food imports rise and farmers’ incomes fall, while exporting the environmental impacts of food production.
Free trade threat to farming [updated]
British farmers are concerned at the implications of a trade deal “in principle” with Australia agreed on 15 June and being rushed through by the government.
Free trade threat to farming
22 May 2021
Free trade negotiations with Australia being rushed through by the government could have devastating implications for farmers across the UK.
Bouncing back: the return of British fruit
1 April 2021
The Covid-19 pandemic has seen increased discussion of home food production. Encouragingly, some British food growers are thinking positively along the same lines.
Agriculture unchained
New developments in agricultural policy give some idea of our potential future as a sovereign nation…
Brexit - The chips are down
Britain is not the only country whose agriculture has been distorted by the EU...
An agricultural call to arms
25 November 2020
A new book does more than grapple with the decline of Britain’s farming – it sets out what needs to be done.
Britain takes on EU over plant safety
9 August 2020
Britain is refusing to give way to an EU instruction that it must reverse a government decision to enforce stricter regulations on the importing of some plants and the banning of others.
Farming - The new 'land army'
Thousands applied to become agricultural and horticultural workers after appeals by government and farmers for a new “land army” to help prevent millions of tonnes of fruit and vegetables going to waste during the coming period.