Nigel Farage’s farming adviser calls for wheat prices to double

Exclusive: critics warn Reform UK use of trade policy would increase food costs amid cost-of-living crisis

Nigel Farage’s farming adviser has called for a doubling of wheat prices by using trade policy, which critics have said would hike food costs during a cost-of-living crisis.

Arable farmer and campaigner Clive Bailye has been appointed as a farming and land use adviser for Reform UK. Bailye owns the website The Farming Forum, a social network for farmers, and helped organise the large-scale protests against the Labour government’s introduction of inheritance tax for farmed land.

Bailye said he has been working with James Orr, Reform’s policy chief, to draft the party’s farming policy for its next general election manifesto. He posted on his forum that he had “significant influence and input” on Reform’s agricultural policy and is “VERY impressed by what I have seen in draft”.

One policy he has suggested is using trade policy to hike the amount farmers are paid for wheat. He wrote: “All that’s required is political will to understand and fix british agriculture. Trade policy could double wheat price over night, job done! It’s really not hard.”

Food prices for consumers have soared in recent years after inflation caused by the Covid-19 pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. UK food prices rose by a total of 38.6% between November 2020 and November 2025. This is likely to be exacerbated by the war in Iran, which is hiking fertiliser costs.

Campaigner and author Guy Shrubsole said: “I find it pretty extraordinary that Reform’s farming adviser wants to double the price of wheat – and hence bread – in the midst of a cost-of-living crisis, and as Trump’s war on Iran is causing fertiliser prices to spike.

“Couple this with Reform’s other policies – such as importing chlorinated chicken from America, slashing nature protections, and covering the landscape with fracking wells – and it’s pretty clear that Nigel Farage would be a disaster for the countryside, and the country as a whole.”

Reform UK has been courting the rural vote, with Farage a regular presence at farming protests. The Labour party diminished its support in the countryside after introducing inheritance tax for farmers, cutting farming subsidies and hiking tax on double cab pick-ups. Farmers are feeling the squeeze, with a third failing to make a profit at all in 2024.

Farage had been seeking nature policy advice from rewilding campaigner Ben Goldsmith, but the party publicly distanced itself from him after receiving backlash from farmers and landowners who disagree with Goldsmith’s bid to release locally extinct animals back into the countryside.

Bailye, who owns a 750-acre arable farm in Staffordshire, said farmers were writing Reform’s rural policy. He said he had seen a “draft agricultural manifesto” and added: “[The] direction is by farmers – economists and lawyers just determine what’s possible or not and ensure the promises are deliverable.” In 2025 he organised a “milling wheat strike” to withhold flour from stores unless the tax rises were dropped.

The Liberal Democrats’ environment spokesperson, Tim Farron MP, said: “While Reform chases headlines, our livestock farmers would see their feed costs skyrocket and our exporters would face retaliatory tariffs that would shut British lamb and beef out of the global market.

“Farage’s party’s ridiculous suggestion shows they don’t understand farmers or farming at all and that they’d leave Brits with even higher food prices.”

A Reform UK spokesperson confirmed Bailye was contributing to the party’s policy agenda. They added: “We do not support policies to increase food prices for consumers. Labour has undermined British farmers through its punitive family farms tax and its war on the rural way of life. Trade policy under both Conservative and Labour governments has damaged our farmers and food security by undercutting British produce with lower unregulated cheaper quality imports.

“The United Kingdom should not be reliant on wheat imports. In the long-term a Reform UK government will pursue a fair trade agenda that protects food security and secures farmers’ livelihoods. Reform UK consults widely with farmers, industry figures, and other stakeholders as part of its policy development.

“Clive Bailye is one of many people who have offered input and expertise in this area. Policy is developed collectively under the direction of James Orr as head of policy and agreed through the party’s formal processes. No external contributor sets or determines party policy.”