Farming a thankless task

It’s reassuring to know that farmers are ‘an integral part of society’.

That’s according to LUSH, the cosmetic company whose products are advertised as 100% vegetarian.

One of their employees refused to serve a young man because the name of the farm displayed on his headgear identified him as a farmer.

His mother’s enraged response went viral on social media where she reminded all and sundry that just about everything people eat is grown by a farmer.

Given that indisputable fact, there should be no question that farmers are valued members of society, but it’s clear from comments on social media and in the farming press that an increasing number of farmers feel undervalued and threatened, frequently asking: ‘do they want farmers at all?’”

This question often follows hard on the heels of the anti-farmer rants of George Monbiot whose favoured mouthpiece is The Guardian newspaper.

It is anti-hunting, anti-badger culling and anti-just-about-everything that makes farming viable, so it was a shock, to say the least, when a recent Guardian headline proclaimed “Brexit and the coming food crisis: If you can’t feed a country, you don’t have a country”.

Had The Guardian suddenly become sympathetic to farmers? Alas no, the story was about the insecurity being experienced by the thousands of EU workers who are essential to the fruit, vegetable and dairy sectors, not to mention abattoir and food processing. The uncertainties facing farmers received a grudging mention in the passing.

Farmers are coming under relentless attack on social media from vegans, animal rights campaigners, environmentalists and the mentally disturbed.

The badger cull, control of foxes and other vermin, halal slaughter, and even sheep shearing have often been the subjects of fake news and photoshopped pictures and presented as crimes perpetrated by the farming community against helpless creatures. The threats and online abuse directed at the Fife farmer who shot a dog worrying his sheep was shocking, and just one example of what individual farmers face on social media.

The irate woman who put LUSH in its corner was stating the obvious in saying the world needs farmers more than it needs bath bombs, but life’s little luxuries certainly seem to matter more than food.

It’s taken for granted that farmers will continue to be food producers, custodians of the countryside and protectors of wildlife.

Agriculture doesn’t feature in the top 10 issues that matter most to voters in the coming UK election and it was recently reported that average farm incomes are below the minimum wage.

So surely farmers should be asking themselves why they are willing to work all the hours that God sends while allowing consumers to believe that food can be sold below the cost of production? Maybe the problem is that it’s farmers who undervalue themselves and the produce that everyone takes for granted.

Do people want farmers? Of course they do. But if farmers feel undervalued and unappreciated they don’t have far to look for the remedy.

The mirror is a good place to start.

It’s taken for granted that farmers will continue to be food producers.