The referendum on Britain’s membership of the EU is just a month away, and the latest opinion polls suggest that voting will be incredibly close.

Since last month, when Farming Online held its second poll ahead of the referendum, the UK’s main farming unions have come out as pro-EU, though most have refused to campaign on the issue. There has been serious criticism of the lack of information on what farmers could expect post-Brexit, which farm unions have said is hampering the ability to discuss the Brexit issue fully.

Organisations including the Farmers Union of Wales (FUW) and landowners’ group CLA have called on government to come up with details of a ‘plan B’ or ‘contingency plan’ to improve clarity and help set the terms of debate. Though the ‘leave’ campaign has been vocal about its vision for agriculture, there has been silence from the government, largely backing the remain camp, which will have the power to set such an agenda.

Within the farming industry, most surveys have shown that the prevailing sentiment is for Britain to leave the EU, though polls from the NFU (43% of members undecided) and small farm union the Landworkers’ Alliance (80% pro-EU) suggest otherwise.

In April, Farming Online’s survey of 463 readers showed 51% support for the Leave campaign, 37% for Remain 12% undecided.

Results of the May poll, which ran for just over a week on the Farming Online homepage and through links in articles shows that, of 345 responses 50% want Britain to leave the EU, 41.5% want Britain to remain and 8.5% remain undecided. Though the ‘leave’ camp remains the largest, the results show a slight erosion of the ‘leave’ vote and fewer people who are unsure, with the ‘remain’ camp gaining more support, as the referendum draws near.

A breakdown of the results by sector show that non-farmers remain mostly pro-EU, and though the sample sizes remained similar, support for the remain camp grew amongst mixed farmers. As with April’s poll, the horticulture sample size was significantly smaller than the rest.

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