By: Rajeswari Parasa
February 9 2024
No, the British farming industry is not halting operations amid farmer protests
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Screenshot of the claim circulating on Facebook (Source: Facebook/Modified by Logically Facts)
Fact-Check
The Verdict False
Logically Facts contacted the UK’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, who confirmed to us that this news is inaccurate.
What is the claim?
As the protests by farmers have spread across parts of Europe, a post on social media has claimed that the British farming industry will be ceasing operations starting Monday. The post claims that the decision has been taken as farmers are facing losses and cannot keep up with the cost of production. It alleges that "a spokesperson for the industry said 'it with regret that farmers feel they can no longer carry on producing food at the prices that don’t even cover the costs of production'”. An archive link to the Facebook post can be found here.
However, this claim is not true.
What did we find?
A Google search on the British farming industry announcing a closure or a plan to cease operations yielded no results. Such an announcement would normally have made headlines. We also checked the website of the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs of the United Kingdom, which oversees farming activities, but there was no such official announcement.
Farmer protests have intensified and spread to several parts of Europe, including France, Germany, Poland, and Greece, but have only just picked up momentum in the United Kingdom, the Telegraph reports. According to a BBC report, protests by farmers in Wales are “more or less inevitable,” as industry members say. However, there are no calls for any halt in operations.
Logically Facts also contacted the U.K. Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, who informed us the news is “not accurate.” We also got a response from Henry Robertshaw, the Chief Press Officer at the Department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs, who deals with farming and fisheries departments, who confirmed that the announcement is “not true.”
The verdict
The British farming industry is not halting operations amid European farmer protests. Spokespersons from the U.K. Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs have rejected the claim. Therefore, we have marked it as false.