0:00
Of course, I mean, this sort of Halloween tradition is like ballooned, isn't it, over the past 20 years or so, I think
0:05
And most of this has come from a place I've just recently visited, America
0:10
They go mad for Halloween over there. Why is it? Why are we copying them
0:14
We've got our own traditions. It's strange, isn't it? We seem to copy them with everything
0:19
Now, Halloween, from what I understand, started here in the UK, but we didn't really pick it up
0:25
I think a lot of it was in Ireland as well, from what I read. Yeah, that's right
0:28
And then America just took it on. And it's all about the fall and it's about this autumn festival
0:35
And I was in Chicago two years ago looking at what they did. I was in Canada this year with Nefan, with our group of farm attraction farmers
0:42
looking at what they do and picking up ideas and just enjoying the experience
0:47
So obviously you've just picked these once a year. It's just one season a year, is it, for growing these
0:52
Yes, that's right. And what do you do the rest of the time on your farm? So we also grow soft fruits, so strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, blueberries, that kind of thing
1:00
Sunflowers, we have a sunflower festival. We have beer festivals, which you might like to come along to
1:06
And yeah, we have various events going on. We also grow wheat, winter wheat
1:13
The price is absolutely horrific with that at the moment, so we're losing money on that
1:17
But luckily, we've diversified enough, we let some commercial buildings, and we can survive
1:23
Fair play. And we obviously had a lot of farmers on Whitehall over the past year or so
1:29
been down demonstrating, been down with the tractors. We've spoke to quite a few of them, actually, as politicians
1:35
They're quite furious with the inheritance tax. Is that going to affect you and your farm
1:40
Of course, yeah. It's going to affect every family farm. And we're a dying breed, family farms, which is incredibly sad
1:47
I'm fifth generation where I am, and I've got four boys, so very much hoping for a sixth generation Yeah What it means is that I going to have to gift this land So in plain English because not everybody understands how this affects farmers so in plain English just explain it
2:02
The easiest way to explain it, we're only a 250-acre farm, but if I explain it in numbers, if you're a 1,000-acre farm
2:09
that would have been worth about £10 million with a house on it
2:13
which sounds an awful lot of money, is an awful lot of money, but you're actually making about, well, at the moment
2:18
you're not making any profit at all, but even in a good year, you're not going to make more than 50,000
2:22
You've got to live off that as a family. With this 20% tax that has come in
2:28
you would have to, if I died, me and my wife died, the children would have to pay 200,000 pounds
2:35
Sorry, 2 million pounds tax. They'd have to pay 2 million pounds tax
2:39
The only way they could raise that is by selling 200 acres of that 1,000 acres
2:45
So that farm will then decrease, and then it becomes less profitable. Do you see how it kind of works
2:50
And what's going to happen with these family farms, generations and generations of blood, sweat and tears
2:56
is that they're going to be bought out by big, quite often foreign money, rather than the family farm
3:04
You are guardians of our countryside as well, aren't you? You look after the countryside for us
3:08
It wouldn't look like it does if we weren't farming it and actually trying to make a living from it
3:14
and providing food which no-one seems to value enough. So we have an Orton statement coming up
3:20
Rachel Reeves will deliver a financial message to the country. What sort of message do you want to hear delivering to you farmers
3:29
Well, I think it's not just farmers. I mean, she needs to..
3:33
The Labour Party don't seem to like farmers very much. They're not treating them very well
3:38
But all business, I mean, it doesn't matter what business you're in. And I'm actually in hospitality as well as farming
3:44
But we are being smashed. And there is no incentive to run your own business
3:49
it's getting harder and harder. But of course, Rachel Reid..
