Published17 minutes ago
The prime minister will announce a package of measures on Tuesday to help farmers – but many say more is needed to support an industry “in crisis”.
Rishi Sunak will use a speech at Tuesday’s National Farmers Union annual conference to outline government plans to boost the UK’s food security.
The NFU broadly welcomed the plans but said they included no actual new money.
Farming protest groups say more needs to be done to protect UK farmers from competition posed by cheaper imports.
The conference, in Birmingham, comes as farmers are struggling with rising costs, low supermarket prices and a new post-Brexit farm payments scheme that many say has focused on environmental policy over food productivity.
Josie Lewis, 25, has taken on the family dairy farm of about 200 cows in Calne, Wilts.
“I have never done anything other than farming,” she told BBC News.
“I love my job. It’s hard but so rewarding.”
But “having enough money to pay the bills at the end of the month is a problem,” Mrs Lewis said.
She added that she believed farmers had to go through too much bureaucracy to access government grants, while being undercut by cheaper food imports from countries with lower welfare standards than the UK.
“British farming is in a crisis,” Mrs Lewis said.
“At the end of the day, who is going to
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