Importing meat can’t be sustainable option

WHEREAS Anton Coaker vents his spleen on those who ‘whine about climate change’ and ‘our woke friends and those demonising farmers’, the greatest threat to farmers and our rural community actually comes from the present Conservative Government.

The present shortage of labour is due to the ideological immigration policy and doesn’t just affect HGV drivers but all sectors of commerce. The farming and the food sector, however, are particularly badly affected. The president of the National Farmers’ Union (NFU), Minette Batters, recently said that there is a 43% shortage of staff in the food processing sector and a 35% shortage of seasonal workers in the farming sector. She continued that this is such a crisis that within the next few days a cull of 150,000 pigs may be necessary. She stressed that she had been unsuccessfully trying to arrange a meeting with Priti Patel and other Government ministers for over two years.

The mountains of red tape caused by the hard Brexit deal have devastated trade with Europe. The Food and Drink Federation has reported that exports to Europe in the first half of 2021 have plummeted by more than a quarter compared to 2019, with cheese and beef exports particularly hit with a loss of 34% and 37% respectively.

The damage to the farming industry will pale into insignificance relative to the effects of the future Australian Trade Deal. This will allow in cheap meat imports which have been injected with hormones and antibiotics which are banned here, from animals reared with welfare standards not allowed here.

The NFU has said that the deal ‘will jeopardise our own farming industry and could cause the demise of many, many beef and sheep farms throughout the UK’. Devon beef farmer, Jilly Greed, has described this as an ‘absolute betrayal’. How can importing food from 10,000

miles away be environmentally sustainable when it is growing on our own doorstep and, in buying it, we support local farmers?

All this is taking place when the existing direct subsidy system is to be replaced by a new, complex system which the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board says is unlikely to offset previous payments.

Farming is facing a precarious future under this Government. It is a Government led by a combination of political ideology and incompetence which is set to cause lasting damage to farmers and, in turn, the whole rural community.

Mike Baldwin Thorverton, Devon