Farmers block roads at Asda depots in prices protest

Farmers blocked access to Asda distribution centres in Leicestershire in a protest over how much the supermarket giant pays them for their produce.

About 30 tractors were involved in the demonstration at four of the supermarket giant's sites at Magna Park, near Lutterworth, on Thursday night and into the early hours of Friday.

"We did this because we're desperate," said Philip Weston, who was one of the farmers involved.

"We need Asda to pay more for our good quality British produce instead of buying from producers abroad."

An Asda spokesperson said: "We are proud to have many longstanding relationships with British farmers and suppliers.

"As a retailer, our priority is to provide a range of products to customers at the value they expect, and we offer a wide range of British products across all of our stores."

Fifth-generation farmer Weston, who has an arable farm at Hartwell in Northamptonshire, said: "This time it's Asda's turn but we have done protests at the other big supermarket sites in recent weeks - they are all as bad as each other.

"We stopped Asda lorries getting in and out for hours and people will definitely have seen a lot less fresh produce on the shelves this morning as a result.

"We've had discussions with Asda, but it hasn't changed anything, so direct action is all we have left."

Asda said it was not aware of any impact on stock levels in stores following the protest.

Weston said the protest was also aimed at the Labour government.

"The trade deals the government has made have made it cheap for supermarkets to buy beef from Uruguay, tomatoes from Spain and wheat from Germany.

"British farmers produce all these things in better quality without the food miles.

"We are being hit from all sides."

Andrew Opie, the British Retail Consortium's director of food and sustainability, said: "Food retailers source, and will continue to source, the vast majority of their food from the UK and are proud to support British agriculture.

"Supermarkets remain committed to paying farmers a sustainable price for their produce and supply chains are strictly regulated by the Groceries Code Adjudicator to ensure suppliers are treated fairly."

A Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) spokesperson said: "Our new era of partnership will create a productive and sustainable future for farming, boosting profitability for farmers selling produce both here and abroad, with our trade deals unlocking new markets for them to sell into.

"More than half of farmers are in our farming schemes benefitting from £11.8bn across this parliament, and the latest farm income statistics show farm incomes rose 49% last year."

Defra said it wanted to see fair supply chains and transparent contracts and had introduced the Agricultural Supply Chain Adjudicator to deal with complaints.

The protesters also said they remained concerned about plans to tax inherited farmland.

The government said it would start imposing a 20% tax on inherited agricultural assets worth more than £1m from April 2026, ending the 100% tax relief that had been in place since the 1980s.

However, after months of protests by farmers, the government increased the threshold from £1m to £2.5m.

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