The outcry to news that the Labour government might slash England’s budget for nature-friendly farming was surprising.

That’s not because the story sprung from nowhere: it’s been widely reported that Defra has left more than £100m unspent each year since the phasing-out of the Basic Payment Scheme began in 2021. What was unusual about the reaction was its strength and unanimity.

The news tied into well-worn narratives. First, there’s Defra’s poor reputation among farmers, above all for processing applications and making payments slowly. The department invests heavily in consulting with farmers and is responsible for delivering complex new environmental schemes, so this reputation is not fully deserved. But stereotypes are hard to shake.

The same is true for Labour. Despite lots of wins in countryside seats, the party is still seen with scepticism within farming, a view only hardened by the infamous 87 words dedicated to agriculture in its last manifesto. The freshly branded minister for ‘food security and rural affairs’, Daniel Zeichner, had a busy summer reassuring farming interests that he was on their side. But then, just as autumn arrived, came this news that seemed to reaffirm Labour’s tin-ear for muddy boots matters.

Organisations of very different kinds have criticized the potential cuts. Of course, farming lobbyists were on the airwaves fighting for their members, but they were joined by campaigners, charities and think thanks whose usual concerns are nature, climate and health.

Over the past few months, an unlikely, uncoordinated coalition has emerged. A chorus of voices making the case for expanding the agricultural budget to shift farming practices and meet the UK’s targets on restoring biodiversity, reducing pollution and cutting emissions. The NFU and CLA both argue that Defra’s annual spend in England should rise from the current £2.4bn to around £4bn, with relative increases in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. In a joint report, the RSPB, National Trust, and Wildlife Trusts similarly claimed that committing to higher funding for at least ten years was ‘imperative’. They understand that farmers are crucial to achieving their aims.

This reflects a bigger trend. People and organisations with different emphases and different visions of the future, who disagree on the pace and mechanisms of change, who might not see themselves as allies, are coalescing around some common-sense aspirations. They want farmers to earn a decent livelihood from growing food, while restoring the soil, encouraging wildlife, using resources efficiently, and taking action on climate change. They want farms to feel part of thriving rural communities, where people can enjoy the food that’s grown in the fields around them. They want healthy food to be accessible and affordable to all families and households, wherever they live.

At the 2024 Labour Party Conference, FFCC is hosting an event with just some of the organisations that share these goals. They include farming groups like the Nature Friendly Farming Network, Pasture for Life, Real Farming Trust, Soil Association, and Sustainable Food Trust, along with food campaigners like Bite Back, Food Foundation, and Sustain. We’re trying to exemplify this rising movement of people eager to make Britain’s food and agriculture healthier and fairer and show that fixing our food system can address this government’s central missions, such as kickstarting growth and rebuilding the NHS while focusing on preventative health.

We’ll be hearing from three farming speakers from across the country with distinctive backgrounds: Andy Cato, Oxfordshire arable grower, DJ, and co-founder of Wildfarmed; Sophie Gregory, a trailblazing Dorset dairy farmer; James Rebanks, Lake District farmer and best-selling author. In their own way, they each articulate the challenge ahead of us and the stakes of inaction.

There’s an opportunity for Labour politicians to stand up and show leadership. This isn’t just about begging the Treasury for further cash, but about laying out a comprehensive, optimistic vision of what the UK’s food system could look like in the decades ahead and a framework of clear, bold and properly funded policies to get there. Recent announcements about children’s dental care and limits on junk food advertising show ambition and a willingness to take on lazy attitudes about state intervention. We await such bravery for agriculture.

The furore of the farming budget revealed an underlying truth: lots of farmers want a strong, decisive government to make food sustainable, healthy and fair for everyone.