Champions formulate future policy post-brexit
Farmings greatest challenge – a change in mindset – needs to be tackled if the transformational change required to make the industry progressive, resilient and compliant in the post-brexit world is to be achieved.
That was the view put forward yesterday as the agriculture champions appointed earlier in the year by rural economy secretary, Fergus Ewing, and charged with helping formulate future farm policy outlined their thinking in an interim discussion document.
While it was acknowledged that getting the industry through Brexit – “the industry’s biggest challenge for a generation” – and securing the funds to do so were crucial, change and evolution were necessary within the industry:
“For a long time EU agricultural policy encouraged farmers to produce whatever they could or whatever they chose, and tried to guarantee them a living, come what may,” said the document.
“There are some within the industry whose mindset is still in that place. Their business model is often based on what they have always done.”
“Public funded farm support is not an automatic right, it is an asset offered to promote self-betterment and it should be used as such.
“We therefore see a need, not for the whole industry but for some parts of it, for a change in mindset which should lead to a new confidence.”
The group, which is made up of former NFUS president John Kinnaird, LANTRA chairman Henry Graham, Archie Gibson, chair of Scottish Food and Drink and supermarket specialist Marion Maccormick, stressed the need for a 10-15 year vision and for cooperation between the sector and its political leaders which went beyond shortterm fixes.
Admitting that starting the exercise with a blank sheet of paper had been a daunting task, the four champions said that the discussion document was being released to the industry now to ensure that the group was travelling on the right course, with the final report due next April:
“It’s not a case of throwing the baby out with the bathwater,” said John Kinnaird, “It’s more a case of checking that the temperature’s right before we put the baby in.”
“We’ve tried to avoid looking back at what we’ve had before as we decide on the course we want future policy to take – but if it so happens that some previous schemes will deliver then we’re quite happy to take another look, but we didn’t want to be tied down by them.”
Providing public value for support measures – while ensuring greater appreciation amongst the public of some of the benefits delivered - stood alongside enhancing the country’s natural capital and helping to improve farm productivity as the mainstays of future policy.
Fairer rewards from the foodchain were also highlighted as a goal and, on the support front, it was suggested that the concept of capping payments “should be examined more closely” while education and training shjould be given higher priority.
In welcoming the broad thrust of the report, NFU Scotland president Andrew Mccornick said the thinking had much in common with the union’s own CHANGE documents which were currently being discussed around the country.
bhenderson@farming.co.uk