Ruth Bradley
Politics Reporter, BBC Somerset
Bbc
Bridgette Baker, 24, is the fifth generation of her family to cultivate at Windmill Farm near Yeovil
“I think my school friends think I’m crazy. They probably thought I would give up – but I didn’t do it.”
Bridgette Baker is a fifth generation farmer of 24 years who cultivates alongside her father and grandfather in the South Somerset Soft Champs.
It is a beef and arable farm, with a few lambs and pigs for their meat company selling to local customers.
With some angry farmers against the government concerning the rules of the tax on successions and changes in agricultural payments, why would a young person want to stay in industry these days?
“At school, we were not encouraged to go to agriculture. It is a shame,” said Bridgette.
“Everyone thought:” Oh, you’re smart enough to do something else. “”
“People don’t think farmers are intelligent, but it’s the most complicated work. You have to be really smart to be a farmer.”
Bridgette said the agricultural industry has so many opportunities that it should be more an option for people at school.
“When I was 15, I started to resuscitate with my grandfather and I really enjoyed.
“I stayed from there, waking up early to prove that I was quite lively,” she said.
Farm animals include rare purebred
Now she starts the day by feeding cattle, including her rare purebut pigs.
“I really appreciate this breed. They have such a good temperament,” she said.
Bridgette and her mother do and sell their own farm sausages.
“Obviously, I will be biased, but I really appreciate sausages and bacon,” she added.
Dotty The Sow is expecting his third ganga in May in May
Having studied agriculture, Bridgette graduated from the university a few years ago and returned to her family farm, where she hopes to stay in the long term.
She said: “There are always a lot of challenges that are launched to you, but I hope that once I have a good system in place on the farm, I will have free time to do agricultural journalism or another work aside.
“You always need a plan B with agriculture, which is a little disappointing, because the farm is not very profitable, so we have always been ambitious while trying to make two jobs both with the family.”
Bridgette buys each year in a small number of orphaned lambs to raise their meat business which sells for customers within a radius of 10 miles
While Bridgette cultivates alongside her father and grandfather, I wanted to discover what she thinks of the changes planned by the government of the inheritance tax in farms.
“When the government announced the successions tax, it was a shock for the rural community,” she said.
From April 2026, there will be a burden of 20% in succession on agricultural assets worth more than 1 million sterling pounds for the first time, although the threshold of paying for some farmers is 3 million pounds sterling.
The government expects the changes to affect the 500 richest areas each year.
The ministers have maintained that it will make things “fairer” and protect “small family farms”.
Bridgette hopes to stay on the long term farm
Bridgette said it means that family farms like hers now need to save to pay the tax “for each time a generation must pass the farm to the next”.
But, she said, it means that they cannot invest in the future of the farm “because we have to plan this payment”.
She said she was worried about family farms could be sold, which would have an impact on the wider rural economy.
She said: “We use tire companies, machine sales, veterinarians, mechanisms, food companies – it affects a large part of the economy locally.”
Bridgette also thought that food prices could increase for consumers if there was less competition from family farms against meat and imported crops.
Bridgette said that the planned changes in the successions on the farms had been a shock for the rural community
Earlier this month, the government announced that it closed an environmental funding flow to new candidates, who had been designed to replace subsidies on the EU farm after Brexit.
The government said that sustainable agricultural incentive (SFI) was successful, with 37,000 agreed financing agreements.
The Bridgette farm receives SFI for environmental management, including the conservation of hedges and trees.
The government said that the entire regime’s budget had been allocated and that more new requests could not be accepted.
Bridgette said that this announcement “closed the door opposite” farmers who were preparing to apply.
“They made all the documents to calculate the earth that was going to enter and all the other bits that are involved,” she said.
“So now, this growing year on the farm, if something is wrong and they don’t make a profit, they don’t have this SFI payment to make them move forward.”
“ Constant commitment ”
Bridgette told me that she thought that the government had made “very large decisions, very quickly, without too much consultation”.
While beef and arable companies are the main income of its farm, Bridgette’s passion is its rare and dotty pigs, three years, is clearly a favorite.
Pregnant with her third range, she must give birth again in May.
Bridgette said: “She was a very good mom and taught me to raise pigs – pigs they will take care of you. She has treated all my mistakes.
“In agriculture, there is so much to learn. You will only learn if you have the experience.”
A government spokesman said that his commitment to farmers “remains firm”.
They said: “We have started 5 billion pounds in the agricultural budget over two years, including more money than ever for sustainable food production, and we are developing a 25 -year -old agricultural roadmap, focusing on how to make the sector more profitable in the decades to come.”
