They said Northern Ireland farmers don’t normally protest. They said the Eikon exhibition centre was not the right location for a gathering.

They said the Farmers’ Union leadership was struggling to gather momentum. The fact that over 6,000 farmers turned up from all over Northern Ireland on Monday night answers a lot.

It goes some way to highlight the extent of frustration at farm level. I honestly believe the inheritance tax is just one element in this whole debacle.

It is clear the frustration at the red tape, the shackles on food production and now the vision of land ownership is core to why farmers are turning out to voice their concerns.

In London on Tuesday, more than 13,000 farmers descended to protest at the introduction of a 20% inheritance tax on farms worth more than £1 million from April 2026, as announced in the Labour budget last month.

What is core to the frustration, and a timely reminder to farmers in the Republic, is that the farmers in London argued on Tuesday that this is a broken political promise.

Environment secretary Steve Reed admitted he had changed his stance after telling two farmers’ conferences a year ago, when he was shadow environment secretary, that Labour had no plans to change inheritance tax rules.

Wider problem

Last weekend I was talking to a farmer friend near Manchester who has 400 acres of the best tillage ground. Normally he rotates wheat, barley, oilseed rape and some grass around the farm.

He has always justified the tillage enterprise with the fact that he only gets between 600mm and 700mm of rain per year and he is farming on his own. Anyway, the fact of the matter is this year, he has decided that joining some of the relatively new government-led environmental schemes on almost two thirds of his land is the way forward.

That effectively means over 250 acres of his best land will be left idle, or almost idle. He reckons he’ll make – in round numbers - over £200 per acre of a margin (€240/acre) from participating in these schemes.

His estimates suggest this would almost double what he would make if he was to successfully plant and harvest wheat and barley taking average five year profit figures.

In one of those years, the margin could be negative. Isn’t it hard to imagine that this is actually happening? My friend isn’t alone. UK statistics show oilseed rape planting is the lowest it has been in 40 years across the water.

Worst harvest

The UK has just come through one of the worst yielding harvests in 40 years. Why would you go to the bother and risk of cropping? If nothing, the government payouts de-risk the business.

Reducing or removing the nitrates derogation in the Republic of Ireland is another way of leaving acres idle. Of course water quality is paramount, but a broad brush stocking rate rule is not specific enough to fix that.

Last week we gathered the five agricultural political spokespersons for a wide-ranging political debate on key issues affecting farmers ahead of the election next week – make sure you watch it back.

Pat O’Toole summarises the various manifesto promises and pledges.

However, as we know, that is all that they are – promises. The timing and details are not always specific.

The politicians themselves might not get elected, they might not be in Government. In addition, any number of other significant farming issues could overrule; weather, bluetongue, TB, Mercosur etc.

French farmers are also on the streets again this week as the rumours mount that the Mercosur deal, agreed in 2019, but awaiting environmental sign off, is close to being finalised.

South American farmers are investing and developing infrastructure to allow them exploit their competitive advantage to grow grain and beef. Irish, European and English farmers have advantages also but are incentivised to leave the land idle. Make sense of that.