Consumers ‘getting hell of a deal’ from Britain’s farmers
ANGELA SARGENT with lessons picked up from the NFU national conference and what they mean for the industry
I’VE just spent two full on days at the national NFU conference, where Minette Batters stood unopposed as president. The other two elected to support her were Tom Bradshaw - who visited Derbyshire and talked to farmers at last year’s Brailsford ploughing match – and David Exwood – an Essex beef/arable/farm shop farmer.
There are also top-of-theirgame speakers attending and we heard from financial experts, government advisers and even our fellow foreign farmers. So, if you get the chance, please go – you will not be disappointed.
So what did I learn? Well, food inflation will peak by the end of the year and then recede, as governments want to keep inflation low and stable. Persistent inflation informs price setting behaviour and, as such, is damaging to the economy.
It is worrying that increased production costs will go up but the Bank of England doesn’t want them to to go to the customer (it fuels inflation). In the words of one speaker: “The consumer is getting a hell of a deal out of farmers.”
To influence policy makers, we need to be informed but policies which are not science based are useless. We need to be focused on our job - to produce safe food, forward looking and agile enough to respond to external factors.
Food standards are separate to food security - clauses can (and should) be put into trade deals to bring them up to our standards, if other countries want and expect to have access to our home market.
Food security to the government means spreading the risk, by being able to import from abroad. Food security also means growing enough
for the home market for when global shortages occur - such as in the Ukraine which has a large portion of extremely fertile soils.
Also, most importantly, Net Zero is not about reducing protein production and we should be very proud that farmers here provide safe food at only half the global average of GHG emissions!
But (and it’s a big but) be very careful of the consequences of any tinkering. Nature does not provide surpluses.
And the speaker, Dr Theo de Jager, president of the World Farmers Org, described one such example.
Denmark has taken the decision to reduce its national herd by 30 per cent, its cows producing 30 litres daily on average. But those cows have the best genetics.
Meanwhile Ethiopia, producing one litre on average (and that supports one family), needs to increase its production.
So in effect, more Danish cattle are needed in Ethiopia. Therefore, producing more from less, with less, is where science again plays its part.
And his final desire was to see all farmers in the world unite to pledge to leave our soils in a better state for the next generation.
I would think many farmers here already think that! We must continue to make our voices heard, tell our stories and inform our local communities and our MPS.
We should be very proud! and less flesh. Big Suffolks over £155 with the best 8 pens averaging £190.20, Swales to over £70. Slaughter rams a mixed entry with Beltex to £136.
Ewes To: £1210 Ave: £105.80 Rams To: £136 Ave: £104