NFU Opinion: Positive change for Cambridgeshire family farms, but more work is ahead to secure industry growth and confidence

Anyone connected to Cambridgeshire’s farming industry will look back on 2025 as an extremely challenging year, with the NFU supporting our members on a wide range of issues.

The family farm tax, extreme weather, water security, rural crime, animal diseases, trade, supply chain fairness, the shortage of local abattoirs and uncertainty over the future of environmental incentive schemes have been among the many issues we have been working on with our members.

As we begin the new year, we welcome some very positive news for many of our farmers.

As a result of NFU lobbying, with fantastic support from the public, the government announced, just before Christmas that it has made significant changes to its inheritance tax plans.

The inheritance tax threshold will be raised from £1m to £2.5m, after a long-fought campaign by the NFU.

Famers pay taxes on their income, like everyone else, but under the old proposals, many small and medium-sized family farms were facing an unpayable tax that would have forced the closure of their business, or made them less viable, so it has been fantastic for the NFU to secure this win for our members.

We know there are still many farmers and growers impacted by the current inheritance tax proposals and the NFU will continue to offer support and advice to those members.

When the next political opportunity arises, we will continue to campaign for further changes to the inheritance tax proposals.

Our work to support farms across Cambridgeshire continues at pace as we go into 2026, and a new report written by former NFU President Baroness Minette Batters, as part of the government’s Farm Profitability Review, could be the catalyst that sparks some of the changes urgently needed to deliver a positive future for the region’s farmers and growers.

This government has said many times that it wants to help Britain’s farmers and growers to become profitable and its pre-election manifesto clearly stated that “food security is national security.”

We could not agree more, but these words need to be followed with actions – the changes to the family farm tax are a very positive step in the right direction.

With British farmers making an average profit of just 1% on capital invested and the industry facing such volatility, farmer confidence is at an all-time low.

So, it is good to see the profitability review taking place and very pleasing that Baroness Batters has a leading role.

She has provided 57 short, medium, and long-term recommendations and has proposed actions for government and industry to support farming profitability.

The NFU’s submission for key areas of focus around supply chain fairness, enhancing opportunities for investment and planning reform have been included.

There is some optimism, as we go into the new year, that this report, and the work that follows, could provide the foundations for rebuilding much-needed confidence.

A stable and successful farming industry is vital for Cambridgeshire and East Anglia, as a region.

Farming delivers £1.4bn to the East Anglian economy and provides thousands of jobs, while farmers here contribute to efforts to deliver national food security. Many are doing some fantastic work to support the environment and protect the region’s countryside, while working to world-leading standards of animal welfare.

We look forward to engaging with the government and other key stakeholders on this review as things progress further.

In addition to the review, we are continuing to highlight issues that need urgent and immediate attention.

This includes much-needed clarity over the future of the Sustainable Farming Incentive.

NFU President Tom Bradshaw recently met with Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, Defra Secretary Emma Reynolds and Dan Tomlinson from the Treasury, to make the case on the family farm tax.

The huge amount of work over the past 14 months has delivered some welcome relief.

Although there were no guarantees at the time, this meeting demonstrates the reach and influence the NFU has and putting us in a far stronger position to make a difference.

This meeting was of course made possible by the sheer number of MPs contacted about inheritance tax by our NFU members and the public. A huge thank you to everyone who took the time to do this.

This lobbying work led to more than 30 Labour MPs recently abstaining on a vote in the House of Commons on the inheritance tax proposals, demonstrating their opposition to the plans and putting more pressure on the Prime Minister and his government to make changes.

In very challenging times for family farms, this has been a real effort across the NFU and among its members.

Be assured we will continue to fight on the issues that matter to our members throughout 2026 and beyond.