Professional services
Use tax relief to boost farm productivity, urges CAAV
dopting an Irish model of income tax relief could boost UK farmland let- tings and boost agricultural pro- ductivity by over £100m, says the Central Association of Agricultur- al Valuers.
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Some 7% of farmland in Ireland was let in 2017 – com- pared to just 2% in 2011. It fol- lowed an increase in income tax relief on agricultural land let for more than fi ve years, intro- duced by the Irish government in 2015. “This has had a profound ef- fect on encouraging the letting of land and if adopted in the UK could be very benefi cial,” says CAAV secretary and adviser Jer- emy Moody. “By the end of 2017 a country with no tenancy sys- tem for over a century had cre- ated 10,000 landlords.”
The increased relief starts at €18,000 (£16,000) per year for a fi ve-to-seven-year tenancy, ris- ing to €40,000 (£35,500) for 15- year leases. As a result, around 180,000ha were newly let at arm’s length for more than fi ve years from 2015 to 2017.
Initial modelling of the same relief suggests that UK agricul- tural productivity could increase by £100m if a further 4% of farm- land in Great Britain and 15% in Northern Ireland were let in this way, explains Mr Moody. “Ireland now has 7% of its farmland let for such periods compared to about 5% in Great Britain under FBTs and limited duration tenancies, and none in Northern Ireland. There’s much greater potential for land to be let across the UK, it just needs the right encouragement.”
Increasing access to land for
profi cient farmers would in- crease UK agricultural produc- tivity – currently increasing at just 1% annually, adds Mr Moody.
The NFU is urging farmers to re- port all incidents of fl y-tipping – no matter how small.
Affecting two thirds of farm-
ers, fl y-tipping remains a key issue, says the union. The NFU and the National Fly-Tipping Prevention Group have worked together to provide clear advice on how best to deal with fl y-tip- ping on farmland.
Although the NFU believes it should not be the sole respon- sibility of the landowner to deal
Land mobility should be an im- portant component in achieving Defra targets to increase this low growth rate, he argues. “The availability of land for productive and profi cient farm- ers who will adopt new technolo- gies and practices needs to be im- proved. Adopting an income tax relief policy similar to that of Ire- land could be the key to making this happen.”
Report fly-tipping urges union
with this crime, when incidents of fl y-tipping take place on pri- vate land it is the landowner’s responsibility to remove the il- legally dumped waste. Regardless of whether fl y-tip- ping is found on public or private land, farmers should always re- port it to the relevant local au- thority, says the NFU. It may be that the culprit can be found or linked to other incidents. Local authorities also report their sta- tistics nationally.
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2019.indd 1 60 ANGLIA FARMER • DECEMBER 2019
22/11/2019 14:26:35
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