The Financial Times reports that a new report by the Countryside and Community Research Institute calculated that across the south-west of England, the wider region — comprising Devon, Dorset, Cornwall and Somerset — would lose £883mn in direct subsidies by the end of 2027

The Conservatives pledged in their 2019 election manifesto to maintain the annual budget of £2.4bn in subsidies for the English farming sector until 2024-25, promising to redirect direct subsidies into new environmental land management schemes.

However the CCRI report suggests that farmers and rural businesses are still facing deep uncertainty over how money would be reallocated to the new scheme and other initiatives, particularly during the transition years.

Commentators have raised that removing direct subsidies to farmers will be felt not only directly on many of the UK’s 200,000 farms, but also by all the assorted businesses — from veterinary practices and feed merchants to solicitors and tractor dealerships — that depend on farmers’ incomes.

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The Financial Times - English farmers count cost of changes to subsidy regime
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