Farming inheritance: Tax change will be ‘death of family farm’

Ms Reeves said, in some cases – where other inheritance tax allowances also apply – the APR threshold could in practice be about £3m, meaning she was only targeting the wealthiest landowners.

But farming unions in Wales dispute this, claiming many smaller family farms will be affected by the changes.

Mr Jones said: “The changes announced are not only a threat to our family farm structure and our tenanted sector but also to our nation’s food security.”

Bernard Llewellyn, a farmer in Carmarthenshire, said another effect of the change could be that land sold to pay tax was “taken up by companies from the other side of the border” to plant trees and “mitigate their carbon”.

This would be in place of “the land being used by a young farming family to produce food which is desperately needed in this country”, he said.

Kate Miles, manager of farming mental health charity DPJ Foundation said the organisation was being contacted by farmers deeply worried by the situation.

“We’re seeing this level of fear, of worry and of outrage across the country… a really powerful maelstrom of emotions that has a serious adverse impact on mental health,” she said.