Farmers treated with contempt
DEAR Editor, After nearly three years of Boris Johnson’s government, it is interesting to take account of how it has treated what has been considered to be its core support: farming and the rural community.
The Department for International Trade has admitted that the much vaunted trade deals with Australia and New Zealand will damage UK farming, which they say is ‘ expected...to contract’.
Lord Deben, the Chair of the independent Climate Change Committee called the New Zealand deal a ‘disgrace’ and said: ‘It is not acceptable and completely at odds with everything the government has promised to do to safeguard our farmers and protect consumers’. The NFU has stated that the deal with Australia: ‘will jeopardise our own farming industry and could cause the demise of many, many beef and sheep farms throughout the UK.’
The new immigration policy and chaotic visa system for seasonal workers has created massive problems, leading to tonnes of crops left rotting in the fields and the culling of over 35,000 pigs. The Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Select Committee recent report ‘Labour shortages in the food and farming sector’ was unsparing in its criticism regarding the incompetence of the government. Neil Parish, the ex-Chair and himself a farmer, has said: ‘We are seeing our industry slowly being destroyed’.
The Countryside and Community
Research Institute (CCRI) at the University of Gloucestershire has recently completed a study of the phasing out of the Common Agriculture Policy Basic Payment Scheme (BPS) and the ‘uncertain start’ of the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI). The study paints an alarming picture with more than £800 million being wiped out over the next five years from farm businesses in one region alone: the South West. It anticipates that the current rates of SFI will bring around 10% to 30% of the amount of former BPS payment to farmers and land managers. Chris Short, associate professor and lead researcher at the CCRI has said: ‘The funding is disappearing, just as living and business costs are rising sharply across the country.’ The report warns that there will be a ‘significant knock-on’ effect for local jobs and businesses in the whole rural economy.
The present Conservative government committed in its 2019 manifesto to maintain the level of spending on farming. This has proved to be untrue. One can only conclude that the Conservative Party under this government has treated farming and the rural community with contempt: a contempt borne out of damaging ideology, incompetence and disregard.
Mike Baldwin, by email