The Starmer government’s “reset” with the EU threatens to undermine food standards and production in Britain in the name of removing trade barriers and its unshakeable assumption that Brexit has been a disadvantage.
Britain’s farmers are maintaining their campaign against government food and agriculture polices. Tax changes make the headlines, but other issues threaten the industry, particularly costs.
15 December 2025
Britain’s farmers continue their campaign against government food and agriculture polices. Tax changes make the headlines, but other issues threaten the industry, particularly costs.
A country that is not self-sufficient in food will always be vulnerable to attack – in peacetime by global producers of junk food, or in wartime by blockade and invasion…
In 1978 the CPBML published a pamphlet titled Food for the People!. We quoted experts in agricultural research who argued that Britain certainly could be self-sufficient in food production, and had a highly efficient agricultural sector
Under the environmental land management schemes of the previous government, still in force and applicable in England, farmers are paid to adopt sustainable farming practices to take land out of food production.
23 April 2025
No one wants to see a reoccurrence of foot and mouth disease in Britain, remembering the slaughter and burning of millions of animals in 2001. British farmers have been urging the government to act in response to cases on the European mainland.
The government has closed a key farming support scheme without notice. On 11 March it announced that the Sustainable Farming Incentive Scheme (SFI) was immediately closed to new applications.
Farmers are not giving up on their struggle against inheritance tax changes and other attacks on their industry.
25 February 2025
Farmers are not giving up on their struggle against inheritance tax changes and other attacks on their industry. Thay are organising widespread protests and are now signing up supermarkets to their cause.
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.
Food for the People
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.
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
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.
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.
Farmers are not impressed with losing 20 per cent of their land from food production, and protests have been growing.
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.
After years of simmering discontent, farmers’ protests are spreading across EU member countries.
9 February 2024
Farmers’ protests are spreading across the EU. They are taking to the roads to demand that the EU supports food production.
27 February 2023
Capitalism can’t feed us. Shortages of tomatoes and salad vegetables are symptomatic of wider problems in farming.
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…
During the pandemic the government promised strategic investment. Now it’s walking away from it…
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.
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.
Green initiatives are not always what they seem – as Welsh farmers, along with others across Britain, are finding out to their cost.
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
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.
There are three elements to the Environmental Management Scheme, which applies to England.
Food production is a public good. And it's time to end the false division between food production and nature conservation...
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.
