Farmers and farmworkers from across the UK will protest in London this week to demand more government ambition on future food and farming policy.
The list of demands for the march include a right to food to be put into UK law, more government support schemes for young people and marginalised groups to enter farming, and a bigger budget for agricultural support schemes.
The march is being organised by the Landworkers’ Alliance - a union representing over 2,200 farmers and land-based workers in the UK.
Other food and agriculture organisations, including Save British Farming, the Sustain Alliance and the Nature-Friendly Farming Network, have also pledged support.
The groups also want to see the new government protect the UK’s high growing standards in upcoming trade deals, so they are not undercut by imported food grown with lower environmental and quality standards.
They fear the government's economic growth agenda will be prioritised to "the detriment of hard-won standards".
Campaigners are also calling on Defra to commit to a speedier delivery and a bigger budget for England’s Environmental Land Management Schemes (ELMS).
The protest will start at 12pm on 15 October in Parliament Square, with organisers promising "colourful banners, tractors, costumes and songs."
There will also be a harvest festival display and home-grown food, with speeches due to end around 5pm.
Jyoti Fernandes, the Landworkers’ Alliance policy co-ordinator and co-founder, is one of the lead organisers of the march.
“The governments in the UK aren’t doing enough to implement the kind of transition we urgently need in our food and farming systems. We need change, and we need it now," she said.
"That’s why we’re bringing consumers, farmers, growers, youth, activists, change-makers and food system workers together to march in London and demand that policymakers take action.
"We are committed to effective ELMS for a just transition to a secure food supply that doesn’t destroy the environment and are calling on the new government to increase the ELMS budget to deliver real benefits.”
Farmers and farmworkers of all ages and backgrounds are travelling from across the UK to join in.
One person is Gerald Miles, 74, an organic farmer from Pembrokeshire, who is part of Caerhys Organic Community Agriculture, a scheme that sees locals and farmers grow their own food.
He set out from his farm in Pembrokeshire, Wales on a tractor on Monday 10 October to travel to London for the march, a journey which will take four days.
“I want to make the biggest protest possible to keep the government’s ELMS, save nature, stop the deregulation of genetically modified crops and support young farmers and young people trying to go back to the land."
