Farmers are threatening a national strike over the inheritance tax increases, the first in history. Given how quickly the Labour government yielded to public sector unions, it is little wonder that the farmers have sensed that strikes are the best way to achieve their goals.
By 1851, the proportion of Britain’s male workforce employed on the land had fallen to 22 per cent – lower than China in 2022
But it is not surprising that the government thought it would get away with stinging family farms for more inheritance tax. The voice of farmers (as opposed to landowning nobility) has long been weak in Britain for simple demographic reasons: few people are employed in agriculture, and this has been the case for centuries.
Britain’s population left the land rapidly during the 19th century to take up industrial jobs, a process that began here earlier than in any other country. Recent research by the University of Cambridge suggests that it began even earlier than previously thought. In 1381 – the year of the first poll tax and for which, as a result, we have records – 77 per cent of the adult male population was employed on the land. By 1600, this had already fallen to 64 per cent and by 1740 to 42 per cent.
Even before the industrial revolution had begun in earnest, and before mass enclosures, Britain had a smaller proportion of its population employed in agriculture than many developing countries do today. India, for example, still has 43 per cent of its population employed in agriculture.
Why so low? From an early time, Britain was a country of tenant farmers, who had to produce a surplus to pay their rent. Agriculture, therefore, had a strong incentive to become more efficient. By 1851, the proportion of Britain’s male workforce employed on the land had fallen to 22 per cent – lower than China in 2022 (23 per cent).
It went on to fall below 10 per cent in the early 1900s (lower than Greece today, where 11 per cent are employed on the land) and to 2 per cent by 1991. That figure has since halved to just 1 per cent. In France, where farmers’ protests are a regular part of national politics, it is 3 per cent.
Britain’s increasing urban population was already fighting – and defeating – the agricultural lobby in the first half of the 19th century. It wasn’t just economic liberals who fought the protectionist Corn Laws, which imposed import tariffs on grain; the Tories split on the issue.
Following the abolition of the Corn Laws in 1846, Britain’s shift away from agriculture accelerated. Having been virtually 100 per cent self-sufficient in food until 1700, by the 1870s this figure had fallen to 60 per cent – the same level it is today. The relative decline in agriculture due to cheap imports did, however, free up labour to turn Britain into the world’s greatest industrial power. It was a prime example of a country prospering by seeking comparative advantage – concentrating on the industries at which it does best.
The disadvantage of allowing agricultural decline became apparent during the two world wars, when food security became an urgent issue. After the war, great efforts were made to rebuild agriculture for this purpose. Perversely, joining a national free trade bloc – the then-European Economic Community – resulted in a more protectionist approach to farming. By 1984, Britain was producing 78 per cent of the food consumed domestically, a high-water mark in modern times. That was before the advent of set-aside, a policy in which the EU paid farmers to leave land fallow for ecological reasons.
Brexit has perhaps inevitably led to an erosion of the protectionism surrounding UK agriculture. Freeing up food markets was always going to be the price of cutting trade deals with countries like Australia and New Zealand, as it will be if the government pursues a deal with Donald Trump. Farmers may seem to be embarrassing the government now – and may well win concessions on inheritance tax – but their protests will do little to change the fact that Britain is a country where agriculture has a remarkably weak voice compared with others. Farmers should enjoy being heard while they can.
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