NI farmers stage inheritance tax protest outside supermarket

Farmers in Northern Ireland have launched a fresh campaign against the UK’s new inheritance tax legislation which will become law on April 1, 2026.

The Farmers For Action group said the protest outside a Tesco supermarket in Coleraine yesterday (Thursday, January 29) marks the start of their next protest campaign.

According to the group a protest will take each week outside supermarkets on a Thursday across Northern Ireland until March 1.

In December last year the UK government confirmed that the level of the Agricultural and Business Property Reliefs threshold would be increased from £1 million to £2.5 million when it is introduced in April 2026.

However the Farmers For Action group said the proposed tax will be “crippling” for farm families in Northern Ireland and said its latest campaign is designed to highlight this.

It has also written to Tesco in Northern Ireland asking them to “turn over a new leaf” and lobby the UK government to revist the plan to introduce the new inheritance from April.

The UK government claimed it had “listened to concerns of the farming community and businesses” about the tax.

NI farmers

But the Farmers For Action group has rejected this and said farmers who put the food on tables for families across Northern Ireland and the UK are “being exploited”.

It is calling on Tesco and other large supermarket groups to lobby the UK government to:

End the Farm Inheritance Tax completely;
Put in place a UK-wide Farm Welfare Bill to have family farmers paid a minimum of the true cost of production inflation linked plus a margin for their produce;
Stop large UK food corporates accelerating climate change with food swaps;
End UK food corporates importing “sub-standard food, such as Brazilian beef”.

According to the Farmers For Action group farmers in Northern Ireland and the UK are “being exploited, financially and physically by the UK’s food corporates and government”.

The group said this is having serious impacts on farmers’ lives and has resulted in health issues, suicides and farm closures.

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