Bill still causing concerns
with Uttoxeter farmer and NFU West Midlands dairy board chairman David Brookes
I RECENTLY saw a post on social media which said we should unplug this year and reboot it, if only, life was that simple!
I sincerely hope you haven’t personally been directly impacted by Covid-19.
Sadly we lost one of our close family members to this horrendous disease and – like many – we couldn’t visit in hospital but did manage to hold a small but intimate family funeral.
Villagers and neighbours came out to line the road to the church, especially the Women’s Institute, which was touching.
Even her 99-year-old brother had to stay in his family car as he couldn’t attend due to the restrictions, but we held a proper rural send off.
Due to the Covid-19 emergency many dairy farmers witnessed the sharpest and most sudden loss in demand in living memory, with the closure of the service sector, dairy farmers in tears with the prospect of tipping their milk away and a crash in the price for what their dairy would collect along with the deferred payments.
Not too long ago we were reading in the media how one processor was enjoying the high life while farmer suppliers were potentially facing ruin.
Credit to the strength of the NFU that our NFU President and national dairy board chairman were able to secure the emergency dairy package from Government.
Sadly it was made almost impossible for many eligible farmers to claim on it, like my late grandfather used to say ‘you can take the horse to the trough, but you can’t make it drink’ it was like that with the government. The NFU dairy team repeatedly explained to the Minister that the scheme was too unachievable for most impacted farmers to successfully make a claim.
From the start of the Covid-19 lockdown and the impact of the closure of the service sector your NFU dairy board was in almost daily contact, either through the now much used Microsoft Teams meetings or the Whatsapp group as events were unfolding daily.
One thing the Minister was determined to do was to not directly compensate some of these processors as he was well aware that they wouldn’t pass it on for the benefit of their farmers!
These issues with some of the processors certainly focused minds of both our union and our Government with the need to secure the dairy contracts legislation and its consultation which again the NFU has been working tirelessly for on your behalf, despite the concerns of the dairy commentators and Dairy
UK. At least farmers have had their opportunity to have their say.
The Agricultural Bill is still causing many concerns, especially around food standards and potential trade deals.
I was particularly taken with an article in the national farming press where the US Agricultural Secretary Sonny Perdue stated ‘if he was a European farmer, he would be crying out for protectionism for being forced into using uncompetitive methods of production’.
He also said he wanted to ‘issue a warning that he didn’t believe we will be on track to meet our food needs and develop sustainable farming techniques if we continue to stifle innovation’ and that ‘these measures would lead to the doubling of food prices around the world, putting millions more people in food insecurity’.
I must say that this certainly provided ‘food for thought’.