Farmers have staged a protest action on the High street slowing down the traffic with tractors. The Environment, Food and Rural Affairs secretary Emma Reynolds was giving a speech at the Oxford Farming Conference, hosted in the Examination Schools.
Farmers have staged numerous demonstrations using tractors across the UK to protest the government’s decision to apply inheritance tax to farms and agricultural businesses, announced in the October 2024 budget. One of the protesting farmers told Cherwell: “It’s an egregious tax. When someone dies, they then put the family through the suffering of finding the tax set… on their farmland, which is our shop floor at the end of the day.
“The government have declared war on the countryside, whether it’s to do with our countryside pursuits or…with food production.”
Speaking about his personal experience he told Cherwell: “I have two sons who want to carry on my farming legacy…It’s currently very difficult for them to take over my farmland.”
Speaking to the press after her speech at the conference, Reynolds stated she had “no idea” what message the farmers were trying to get across, and criticised the use of the tractor horns during the demonstration.
At the conference, Reynolds announced the set up of a Farming and Food Partnership Board. She emphasised that “farmers will have a seat at the table when policy is developed”.
Extinction Rebellion (XR) also staged a protest outside of the Examination Schools. A demonstrator told Cherwell: “We believe that big farming is extremely deleterious to nature and to social life”, citing methane emissions and the negative impacts of farming techniques on species of wildlife. She added that “the themes of this conference are completely misguided and ignore what the real problems in farming are”.
The Extinction Rebellion protestors laid cardboard tombstones outside of the conference dedicated to wildlife species purportedly adversely affected by farming. In a similar protest, the farmers placed a coffin outside of the High Street entrance to the Examination Schools with “R.I.P British Agriculture” written on it.
Following criticism from rural business activists, the government altered the plans to raise the tax relief threshold from £1 million to £2.5 million.
Thames Valley Police (TVP) have blocked access to Merton street. A TVP spokesperson told Cherwell that they are aware of “an ongoing protest in Oxford today” and “have officers in attendance and are facilitating a peaceful protest”.
