Farming Conference 2024
Our one-day virtual Farming Conference has been specifically designed for partners and managers with responsibility for a number of farming clients.
This specialised event looks at a wide range of practical issues, including the latest developments from the Autumn Budget 2024. Attendees will gain valuable insights and updates, empowering them to offer the highest quality advice to their clients.
Looking ahead, from 2025 we will be consolidating our two farming conferences into one annual event. This means that this will be the only opportunity to attend a Mercia live-streamed Farming Conference until October 2025. We strongly encourage you to secure your place now to avoid disappointment.
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Full conference agenda
09:30 AM
Welcome and Introduction
Graham Redman, The Andersons Centre
This session will cover the current and projected farm profitability for each farming sector. Exploring the main drivers such as policy changes, market movements and outlook for the farming sectors and the future of UK farming.
10:15 AM
Break
Jeremy Moody, CAAV
This session will cover:
- Review of its Position
- Going for Growth?
- Themes – Investment, Housing, Infrastructure
- Net Zero - All Renewable Electricity by 2030?
- Public Finance and Taxation – Early Steps
- Other Grit in the Machine? – Employment Law etc
- Renters Rights Bill.
11:15 AM
Break
Oliver McEntyre, Select Rural LTD
This session will cover:
- An overview of the UK agricultural sectors gearing and debt levels, income streams and the challenges of losing BPS income.
- What a modern individual farming business will need to consider in the coming years & what support they might need to get there.
Jeremy Moody, CAAV
This session will cover:
- Continuity on Schemes?
- Productivity and Public Goods
- Other Steps
- Reviewing the Environmental Legacy
- Water and Nature
- Competition for Land Use, Food, Energy, Development, Nature.
12:40 PM
Lunch Break
David Missen, Larking Gowen LLP
From 5 April 2024 all unincorporated accounts should be prepared on a ‘cash basis’ unless an election is made to remain on the traditional accruals basis. Does this mean that accounts production is suddenly much more straightforward, should we automatically opt to retain accruals accounting and produce figures in accordance with accepted accounting standards or is there a case for producing ‘one set for the bank and another for the tax man’?. David will look at worked examples to see how this may be to clients' advantage.
Jeremy Moody, CAAV
This session will cover:
- This Spring’s Permitted Development Rights for Farming
- Now – The Housing Challenge
- Requiring Housing from Councils
- Cracking Open the Green Belt
- Squeezing Development Land Values
- Energy, Water, Prisons, etc.
3:15 PM
Break
David Missen, Larking Gowen LLP
Irrespective of where the blame lies, we know that there is a £22 billion black hole in the public finances, not to mention an ambitious spending programme for the next five to 10 years. We have been promised no rises in the key personal taxes, so capital taxation, which has seemed comparatively benign for many years, is looking highly exposed.
This session will look at Budget announcements and how they will change Inheritance Tax and Capital Gains Tax structures and planning. For years advisers have been telling agricultural clients that in the field of capital taxes ‘you've never had it so good!’ - it seems almost inevitable that will now change.
The exact detail of the session will not be determined until a few days before delivery, but it will cover some or all of the following:
- Capital Gains Tax changes
- Inheritance Tax changes
- Stamp Duty Land Tax changes
- Any new capital taxes
- Transitional arrangements
- Tax planning in the new regime.
4:15 PM
Break
James Hurst, Mercia Group Ltd
This session will look at some recent changes in VAT as well as covering a selection of common VAT issues for farming businesses and estates.
5:00 PM
Close of Conference
Conference speakers
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Graham is a Partner of The Andersons Centre, author of the John Nix Farm Management Pocketbook and a Director of Agro Business Consultants. He has been an agricultural economist at The Andersons Centre since 2004. He provides specialist agri-business research services, to public and private organisations alike. These include training, briefings, agricultural modeling and lead project-work. The Andersons Centre is a multi-disciplined farming and agribusiness consultancy, providing advice and interpretation to all sectors in the agricultural supply chain. Before joining Andersons, Graham was the economist for a major agricultural merchant, focussing chiefly on grain and animal feed marketing providing guidance to the grain trading and grain procurement teams. Prior to that, he was a farm management consultant for a national firm in Central and Southern England. He has worked extensively on several types of farm. Graham has agricultural degrees from Leeds and Reading Universities. He is a Council Member for the Institute of Agricultural Management and a Chartered Environmentalist. |
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Jeremy is Secretary and Adviser to the Central Association of Agricultural Valuers and an independent adviser. |
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Having previously been a Partner within a regional firm of chartered accountants, David is now an independent consultant. He is an agriculture subject matter expert for the ICAEW farming community and also writes assignments and lectures for firms within the sector. He has his own small farm which he has expanded with a mixture of arable, solar and stewardship areas. |
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James joined Mercia in October 2022 as VAT trainer and consultant. His role involves writing technical material as well as devising and delivering VAT training courses. James has a wide experience of VAT and indirect tax, beginning his VAT career with HM Customs & Excise (as it then was) before moving to the private sector in 1995 and gaining his CTA qualification. Latterly, he had VAT partner and head of VAT roles in Grant Thornton and Mazars. James was actively involved with the Charity Tax Group for a number of years and has presented on VAT topics for the Charity Finance Group. Outside of work, music remains a keen interest. Aside from playing jazz on the tenor sax, James is a regular member of the trumpet section of the Leeds Project Big Band. |
One Day Conference
Previous Farming Conferences
Explore the programme of our previous Farming Conferences:
