I'm a British farmer - Trump and Starmer's trade deal will wipe out family farms like mine

More British family farms could be forced to shut after being edged out by US imports agreed by Sir Keir Starmer in a new trade deal, industry figures claim. James Mills, 37, said his 500-acre arable farm near York will be crippled by Starmer and Donald Trump's plans to lift tariffs on US ethanol entering the UK in yet another blow after Rachel Reeves's controversial inheritance tax hike. Supplying crops like wheat to bioethanol plants is a crucial way for arable farmers to supplement their income, Mr Mills, said with the UK's two biggest plants, Associated British Foods (ABF) and Ensus, also creating animal feed as a by-product.

The government has been accused of shafting the agricultural sector for tariff exemptions in other sectors in its new US-UK trade deal. Britain's 19% tariffs on US ethanol will drop to zero through a 1.4 billion-litre quota and American farmers will be able to import 13,000 tonnes of beef that meets UK welfare standards as part of the plans. In exchange, the US agreed to remove 25% additional tariffs on steel and aluminium and a quota of 10,000 cars at a levy of 10%. "They're sacrificing an industry they don't understand," Mr Mills told the Express. "What worries me is that Labour clearly has certain industries it views as a priority. Agriculture doesn't make an enormous contribution to GDP, so it's being viewed as a tradable commodity."

He added: "I supply wheat to the Vivergo plant near Hull [owned by ABF] which is already at risk of closure. Combined and working at full capacity, the UK's two biggest ethanol plants take around two million tonnes from farmers each year. And the animal feed they produce is around 40% of the cattle feed used in the UK. Where are we suddenly going to get that from?

"The likelihood is that we'd have to export [the wheat] instead, and to do that we'd have to be around £15 a tonne cheaper than our French competitors. The extra costs are very quickly going to become cumulative. More and more land is already being sold, and it makes it increasingly difficult to see a viable future as a farmer in this country."

The 37-year-old warned: "The loss of family businesses will be hugely significant. Once that land is scooped up by multinationals, we will see generational damages that will be nearly impossible to unpick. You'll lose the skills, you'll lose the community - but the Treasury just doesn't seem to appreciate that."

National Farmers Union President Tom Bradshaw also warned that the trade deal risked forcing the agricultural sector to "shoulder the heavy burden of the removal of tariffs for other industries in the economy".

The CEOs of ABF and Ensus have already suggested that they will have to shut down their UK plants entirely, pointing to an "impossible" climate linked to the tariff change and "regulations that give overseas producers an unfair advantage in the British market".

It comes after Labour announced plans for a 20% inheritance tax on British farms worth over £1 million from April next year, a hotly contested tax change that the Express is campaigning against in its Save Britain's Family Farms crusade.

While the US will also have access to the UK beef market at a quota of 13,000 tonnes, livestock farmers including Sally Hodgson, 61, said cheaper American imports could pose unfair competition to her small-scale lamb, beef and mutton farm in Derbyshire.

Ms Hodgson, who also works as a dry stone waller and teacher of country crafts to supplement her meagre income, said: "We've always farmed as sustainably as possible - with no chemicals and a focus on biodiversity. I like to think of farming as important for nature as well as food, but US meat won't be anything like that.

"We have such high standards here, and we sell directly to the local butcher. I'm proud of what we produce. People who live nearby know exactly where their food's coming from. But how are we going to compete if it's being exported at a much cheaper cost?"

Liz Webster, of the Save British Farming campaign, added: "The Americans take a fundamentally different approach to food and farming compared to Europeans, who place a high value on quality produce, animal welfare and environmental stewardship.

"In the USA, agriculture is driven by intensive production and profit, backed by generous subsidies. For British farmers, a trade deal with the US spells more unfairness in our own marketplace, as cheap imports undercut British food and drive farms out of business.

"This risks triggering a race to the bottom on food standards, public health and food security - leaving us increasingly reliant on other countries to feed us and dangerously exposed to being held to ransom over our food supply."

Trump's agricultural secretary Brooke Rollins has said US beef producers would be prepared to abandon hormone use in order to sell to the UK and emphasised that "only about 5%" of American chicken is now washed with chlorine to reduce bacterial contamination.

The UK Government has also insisted that chlorinated chicken and hormone-treated beef will remain illegal in Britain.

A spokesperson said: "This Government signed a deal with the US in the national interest to secure thousands of jobs across key sectors - from the auto industry to steel - and lay the groundwork for greater trade in the future.

"The Business Secretary met the CEOs of the UK's two bioethanol companies this week to understand the impacts on the industry of the deal and is open to discussion over potential options for support."