Farmers are converging on Westminster for a tractor protest against “substandard imports and dishonest labelling” they warn are threatening food security.

The campaign groups Save British Farming and Fairness for Farmers of Kent are assembling for a “go-slow” convoy and drive around Westminster, with organisers expecting 50 to 100 tractors as well as other farm vehicles this evening.

The protesters are raising concerns over the increasing difficulties faced by the British farming industry which they say are leaving the nation’s food security at risk.

They are calling for an end to trade deals which they say are allowing imports of food produced to standards that would be illegal in the UK and undercutting British farmers.

Organisers also criticise labelling that allows products to bear a Union flag when they have not been grown or reared in Britain.

Farmer Richard Ash, from Sandwich, says “life has become more difficult” for those in the industry.

“There is less incentive for young people to come into farming because we feel farmers are not valued by politicians, Defra or the supermarkets,” he told Shy News.

“All we are asking is to get a fair return and to be able to stop imports that are less safe as they are often using chemicals that were banned in the UK many years ago.

“Those chemicals are still being used and that food is still being put on the supermarket shelves in front of the British public when we feel our own is far more secure.

“Do we want to become a country where we import all our food and we rely on the rest of the world to feed us?

“Or would we like good people who know what they are doing to produce it safely?”

Geoffrey Philpott, a cauliflower farmer in east Kent, who is taking three tractors to the rally, said: “I hope to be farming for many years to come, but if things don’t change, I won’t be and I won’t be employing the 14 people who work for me.

“Then we will be reliant on foreign produce that will not have the high standard of UK production.

“Once that happens, we could be held to ransom over supply and pricing.”

Jeff Gibson, founder of Kent Fairness for Farmers, said with an election looming, farmers want to ensure the next incoming government takes up their case.

“It’s so important that our message about substandard imports, dishonest labelling and concerns for food security is heard,” he said.

Wiltshire beef and arable farmer and Save British Farming founder Liz Webster said the situation risks food security and the nation’s health.

She added that trade deals with New Zealand, Australia, and the CPTPP deal with 11 countries including Canada, Japan and Mexico, along with a lack of import checks, were allowing lower standard foods into the country.

Ms Webster also warned of how British producers had also lost the level playing field with EU farmers and within the UK.

“It is now entirely obvious that they have totally betrayed us all...”

She said European farmers were still receiving subsidies, had freedom of movement for labour, and had continued to have access to British markets, enabling them to undercut farmers in Britain, adding that the current situation was “like going out with the English football team to the World Cup and saying ‘off you go, you’ve got chains on your legs and chains on your hands’. We are completely and utterly disadvantaged.”

She added that at the same time, the new English agricultural policy of paying farmers for environmental measures such as habitat creation, was taking land out of food production.

“In 2019, this government was elected with a mandate to uphold our standards and deliver a ready-made deal with the EU which would see British agriculture boom,” Ms Webster said.

“It is now entirely obvious that they have totally betrayed us all.

“Polling shows that the public back British farming and food and want to maintain our high food standards and support local producers.

“We need a radical change of policy and an urgent exit from these appalling trade deals which will decimate British food.”

She criticised the government for changing its trade and agricultural policies, and then not monitoring food security closely enough, warning the UK could have to compete with other countries for supplies. She is also calling for alignment with European regulations to support British farmers.