Norfolk farmer Graham Shadrack elected county NFU chairman

Graham Shadrack has been elected Norfolk county chairman for the National Farmers' Union, and will formally take up the role in February, replacing current postholder Tim Papworth.

His family runs a 500-acre mixed farm in Breckland, growing arable crops and finishing pigs, certified by Red Tractor and RSPCA Assured, on a straw-based contract for a local meat processor.

The 67-year-old has been working with livestock, mainly pigs, for more than 50 years.

Graham Shadrack has been elected as the next Norfolk chairman of the National Farmer's Union (NFU) (Image: Denise Bradley) And he said his tenure as the figurehead for Norfolk farming comes at a "difficult, but exciting time".

Mr Shadrack said the cuts to inheritance tax which sparked this week's protests in London proved that the traditional financial dynamics of the family farm were "finished" - the final straw for many after months of high costs and the final phase-out of EU subsidies which previously acted as a support structure for British food producers.

So he said new solutions were needed to reduce costs and share the burden of capital investments.

"You have got to be an optimist to be a farmer, or you wouldn’t get out of bed in the mornings," he said. "That’s my view.

"I have to be an optimist. I have to be able to look a kid in the eye, at the age of 20 years, and say: 'Yes there is a future in this industry, but you are going to have to fight a little bit different to what we had to'."

He gave an example of a decision his own family business had made to forge a cost-sharing partnership with two other farms.

"What we have done to try and cushion ourselves against things is we have brought three family farms together, one related to us, one is a neighbour of ours, and we’ve bought a combine harvester together. A big one.

"This last harvest, we have combined all three family farms together. It might be, going forward, that the family farm as it is known today may have to do something similar.

"You have got to look at the same picture from a different angle. You have got to get together, sit around the same table and say: 'We have got to do this to move forward to keep our costs down'."

Graham Shadrack has been elected as the next Norfolk chairman of the National Farmer's Union (NFU) (Image: Denise Bradley) In recent years, Mr Shadrack's farm has also invested significantly in modern high-welfare pig buildings, and he said many other farmers who had tried to improve their assets were now in the firing line for crippling inheritance tax bills, after the chancellor announced Agricultural Property Relief (APR) would be cut for farms valued over £1m.

"Family farms might have kids who might want to come into the business, and you think it might be an idea to give the next generation a living.

"We could not afford to go out and buy another farm at prices which today are £10,000 per acre in Norfolk. So we made the investment, no different to a dairy farmer would have done with a milking parlour or any other kind of business.

"You have to make the investment going forward and that means you have to sit down with a bank to discuss a loan, you try and work it so you can afford the payments - and then you are hit with a budget like this. It has been put together not understanding the community and the industry that is hit.

"Just imagine if you are 80 years old and you have not made any plans for succession. Now, some will turn around and say that’s their own fault. But up until three weeks ago, nobody knew there was an issue. So now people in their 80s are saying: 'What are we going to do?'

"The pressure it puts on... we’re not just taking about financial pressure, we are talking about mental pressure. This industry is under enormous pressure. There are farms now with a wage under £20,000 a year.

"This [inheritance tax] net was thrown wide to catch that top 10pc of corporates or extremely wealthy people who have put money there to hide from tax, but in doing so, 85-90pc of the people that net has dropped on are families."

Other priorities in the new NFU county chairman's in-tray will be issues around irrigation water and abstraction licensing, the impact of major energy cables crossing the countryside, and the ongoing efforts to find a new home for Norwich Livestock Market.

Mr Shadrack runs his family business alongside his brother-in-law David Garrod, his son Mark Shadrack and son-in-law Chris Howes. His wife Susan - who he describes as "a driving force" - also runs a boarding kennel business with their daughter Emma Edwards.

Graham Shadrack has been elected as the next Norfolk chairman of the National Farmer's Union (NFU) (Image: Denise Bradley)