The Environment Secretary will meet the president of the National Farmers Union (NFU) on Monday, amid the sector’s fury over what they describe as a “horrible” tax on family farming.

Sky News understands Steve Reed will meet Tom Bradshaw amid calls to reverse the tax changes, including from Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey.

It comes as the NFU says it will organize a “mass lobby” of MPs to make their discontent known. This means that farmers will go to parliament at the same time and demand to speak to their MP, which they have the right to do.

According to the budget documents, from April 2026 farmers will be able to claim 100% inheritance tax relief on the first £1m of combined farming and business assets, reducing to 50% beyond that.

The government is “restricting the generosity of agricultural support” in a bid to make the inheritance tax system “fairer”.

It will also spend almost £600m on flood defenses and agricultural schemes in 2024/25, but warned that “these plans need to be reviewed” for future years.

NFU president Tom Bradshaw said: “Farmers and producers have been left reeling by the changes announced in the Budget, which demonstrate a fundamental lack of understanding of how the British farming sector is set up and managed.”

He said current plans to change Agricultural Property Relief (APR) and Business Property Relief (BPR) “must be revoked and quickly”.

Bradshaw added: “Farmers are rightly angry and worried about their future and the future of their family farms, having been assured by ministers in the run-up to the budget that changes to the APR and BPR were not over the table.”

He also stated that the Treasury’s claim that this will only affect one in four farms is “misleading” since

“The £1m APR cap shows how little this Government understands the sector,” he said, pointing out that “very few viable farms would be worth less than £1m”.