From Beak Hills to the Cotswolds: A Tale of Unequal Farming

Cringle Moor, as seen from Cold Moor across the eastern sweep of Raisdale. Below sits Beak Hills farm, your archetypal North York Moors operation. According to their website, they mostly breed sheep on 125 acres of valley pasture, with another 300 acres of shared grazing rights on Cold Moor. They have also embraced modern farming realities by branching out into camping, accommodation, and a quaint “Bothy” for walkers staggering along the Coast to Coast or Cleveland Way. A fine example of what passes for an “ordinary” farm these days.

And ordinary it is—much like most English farms. Around 59% are smaller than 123 acres, and a whopping 90% are under 500 acres¹Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs. Structure of the agricultural industry in England and the UK at June. https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/structure-of-the-agricultural-industry-in-england-and-the-uk-at-june. Many are tenanted, so the impending changes to Agricultural Property Relief likely will not keep them up at night. Unlike, say, certain high-profile “farmers” who howl at the thought of paying taxes on their sprawling estates. You know the type: Clarkson, Dyson, the Earl of Derby—modern-day champions of rural Britain, if you squint hard enough. All sequaciously parroted by the likes of Farage.

Take Jeremy Clarkson, for instance. With his 1,000-acre Cotswolds farm, he once crowed, “Land is a better investment than any bank can offer. The government doesn’t get any of my money when I die.” How stirring. Of course, compared to James Dyson’s 33,000 acres and his £1.8 million in farm subsidies in 2023, Clarkson’s patch is positively modest—a mere postage stamp in Dyson’s atlas of agri-capitalism.

It is the smaller farmers who genuinely deserve support, yet they are the ones left struggling. They face inflated land prices and dwindling opportunities thanks to the antics of these untaxed land barons, who make farming unaffordable while wriggling out of their societal dues. The cherry on top? Aristocratic estates lounging within our National Parks are busy exploiting yet another tax dodge: the “tax-exempt heritage assets” scheme. What do they use it for? Why, to fund ecologically ruinous grouse moors and pheasant shoots. But perhaps I will save that joyful topic for another time.

In any case, it is high time these so-called stewards of the land stopped dodging taxes and started contributing like everyone else.

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  Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs. Structure of the agricultural industry in England and the UK at June. https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/structure-of-the-agricultural-industry-in-england-and-the-uk-at-june