Labour's inheritance tax raid on farms risks harming the nation's food security as the world becomes increasingly less stable, a TV farming star has warned.

Roger Nicholson, 82, the owner of 200-acre Cannon Hall Farm, known to millions from the Channel 5 series Springtime on the Farm, believes the Government is failing to learn from rural neglect in the 1930s as Hitler rose to power.

Roger's father Charlie joined official efforts to boost local yields as a member of the War Agricultural Executive Committee.

"Food production is the most important thing that the British population needs," says the great-grandfather whose sons, Rob, 56, and Dave, 54, are the third-generation custodians of the farm at Cawthorne, South Yorkshire.

Roger was speaking out as European leaders met this week as part of the UK-led "coalition of the willing" to safeguard Ukraine's security as US support falters.

He says: "Having experienced rationing after the war, I never expected to be in a position again where food security wasn't taken seriously by our Government.

"Now, in an unstable world, suffering from the privations of war and climate change, we need to learn from history. We need to protect our ability to produce food at all costs.

"We could probably ride out one go of inheritance tax but if you start selling land to pay the debt it's a road to nowhere.

"We can't be sure the countries we import food from now won't fall victim to war, drought, wildfires and flooding, indeed many already are."

His concerns are echoed by Rob and Dave who are bringing new miniature horses to the farm. Cannon Hall diversified into tourism under Roger's direction 36 years ago to survive, and they are delighted with the attraction's new arrivals.

"We are worried for farming's future, and we fear all the benefits of family farms will be lost for future generations," says Rob, whose third book written with his family about their farming life has just been published. The first two were bestsellers.

He adds: "Of course, it is right and proper that once people cash in their chips and decide the time is up, they should pay tax. We are more than happy to pay our share, and we want a flourishing NHS and for everyone to have a great crack at life.

"However, the margins in agriculture are wafer thin and there are entire family farms clinging on by their fingernails. This tax is going to make them sell their best animals and their best fields, while they are still trying to put food on the nation's tables, and it seems a cruel way to finish off someone who is doing their best to keep going.

"We're not grumbling for ourselves. We will soldier on whatever, because we have diversified, but there are people we are really worried for - friends for whom this is going to be the straw that breaks them.

"I am hoping the Government can have a rethink and find a way to raise money another way while keeping family farms alive. This land is there as a companion, and you hopefully leave it in better heart than you inherited it."

Roger grew up at Bank End Farm in Worsborough, South Yorks, which had belonged to the Nicholson family since 1650 until compulsorily purchased by the local council for just £60 an acre when he was 15. A council estate was built on the land.

"Cannon Hall was bought by my granddad that year, but he passed away within six months when my father was a boy but already a farmer," says Rob. He said inheriting a farm at the age of 16 gave his dad a "steely determination as a boy to find a way to success".

Roger adds: "The 30 years that followed, I spent trying to make a living on 126 acres, struggling to support my growing family."

In the mid-1980s, the bank threatened to call in its loan and he decided to open the farm to tourism at the end of that decade. Having survived challenges including foot and mouth in 2001 and the pandemic he was "quite confident about the future until the last Budget".

He says decisions are being made by politicians "who don't seem to quite understand the countryside and agriculture, and that's the big problem. They don't seem to set down and work out their sums.

"They are soon going to realise that they are not going to get a lot out of it once farmers disappear. The fields have got bigger, the hedges have gone, so the environment that wildlife needs is disappearing. The hedgerows were a network of safe corridors, so the insects are vanishing."

Rob adds: "Without a doubt, Dad and Mum are the driving force behind the farm and they just hung in there."

Roger was 19 when he married 17-year-old Cynthia.

Now aged 80, she says: "Tom my eldest grandson, who has a degree, now works on the farm on the management team.

"I have three great-grandchildren and would love them to go into the family business. I want them to have the opportunity."

Cannon Hall employs nearly 300 people.

"We don't take a huge wage as we invest going forward and have continued to reinvent and create a load of jobs," says eldest son, Richard, 58.

Dave adds: "Our last roll of the dice was tourism. If we hadn't been able to make that pay, it would have been sold then."

However, the brothers say diversification is not for everyone.

Roger agrees. "You should be able to make a living out of producing food. It's not an easy job. But this new tax is an encouragement to give up.

"When it catches up with them they will be selling land to pay the bills, and a way of life will be lost forever together with our nation's food security."

Cannon Hall Farm: Past, Present & Future is published by Mirror Books priced £20 and out now