𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

Labour has been blasted for wasting up to £270,000 of taxpayers’ money researching how to push Britons towards veganism as farm closures hit record levels. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is advertising for researchers to explore how a move to “more sustainable and healthy diets” could help achieve Net Zero by 2050.

A contract advert posted online says the study will examine “policy driven and trend driven dietary transition scenarios” and look at the impact across the country’s agricultural sector, herd sizes and protein production. Critics fear the research will be used to promote veganism and alternative proteins at the expense of British farmers already reeling from Labour’s inheritance tax raid.

A record of 6,270 agricultural businesses have closed their doors since Labour launched their unpopular raid on the British family farm. They rolled back on plans, increasing the threshold at which a farmer’s estate would be forced to pay out when they die – but only after months of protest. The Daily Express campaigned to save stop the Family Farm Tax from the moment it was was announced.

Rural campaigners urged the department to spend the money on supporting hard-working farmers instead. Johnnie Furse of the Countryside Alliance said the government should not be “splashing more than a quarter of a million pounds looking at ways to tell people what they should and shouldn’t be eating.”

Mr Furse said that “policies like this are so far removed from the priorities of the public and do nothing to repair the damage between government and the farming community.” Critics also pointed out that this year Defra officials spent £650,000 sending civil servants on field trips to the countryside to see how farms work.

Criticism came from Westminster as well with Victoria Atkins, the Shadow Environment Secretary said that in the past twelve months “this government has overseen the highest number of farm closures on record, plummeting investment and farming cash flow crises because of their disastrous farming policies.”

She fumed: “Whilst war is raging in the Middle East, there are rising energy prices and real concerns about our nation’s food security, Ministers are wasting taxpayers’ hard-earned cash on exploring ‘alternative diets’, including veganism.”

Labour ministers are “attacking the rural way of life” the MP added, saying that “we Conservatives are backing British farmers and helping consumers to buy British food with our ‘close the flag loophole’ campaign, ensuring that the Union Jack or the phrase ‘Made in Britain’ can only be used for genuinely British food.”

The Conservative Party recently unvieled plans to change the rules around the use of the ‘Made in Britain’ tag for food to ensure the products bearing that badge where authentically British.

Defra’s year-long project will be running until March 2027 and model how dietary changes could influence greenhouse gas emissions from the food system.

The contract notice states: “This project is informed by a growing evidence base demonstrating that demand side dietary change is likely to be essential for meeting the UK’s Net Zero goals, as supply side agricultural efficiencies alone are insufficient.”

Defra has separately commissioned research firm ADAS to examine the climate implications of expanding the UK’s alternative protein sector, with results expected late this year.

A Defra spokesman described the claim as “nonsense” saying that the government was backing farmers with grants and equipment to move to sustainable farming.

They added: “The UK maintains high food labelling standards so that consumers can have confidence in the food that they buy, imported food simply packed in UK can’t be labelled as British: that’s against the rules.”