Time to face the real world

BRITAIN is awakening from a 30year dream. Ever since the fall of the Berlin Wall, we have assumed we lived in a world where nothing would prevent us from getting the food and energy we needed and in which the possibility of a European war had been relegated to history. The shock of the invasion of Ukraine was all the more devastating because it brought us face to face with the ugly reality that, in 2022, we have not, after all, outgrown 1914 or 1939. Untrammelled power still threatens the brave new world that we assumed glasnost had inaugurated and undermines the security we have for so long taken for granted.

Indeed, it is security that has taken on an urgency few thought would return. Last week’s statement on energy policy marks a revolution in Government thinking. It says clearly that we can no longer rely on others to keep the lights on. Instead, Britain will look to our own wind and sun, plus nuclear, for our power. The departments for Business and the Treasury have recognised that we need a properly defined programme, backed by the necessary finance, to secure our energy.

Yet, we also need to face up to the threat to food supplies. There, by contrast, the Government’s response is entirely inadequate. For some time, Agromenes has warned of the direct effects on agriculture of the escalation in oil and gas prices. All the inputs upon which farmers depend have risen sharply in cost. Already working to the narrowest of margins, much of production is now unprofitable. From dairy and horticulture to pigs and poultry, farmers face a cash crisis. The war in Ukraine has exacerbated the underlying fragility of their businesses, so it ought to have brought home the need for the same clear programme for food security that we now have for energy.

Not a bit of it. We can’t even harvest what we produce right now. One day before the Energy Statement came a damning report from the select committee investigating Defra’s response to labour shortages in agriculture. It said the Government had failed to grasp the issues that threatened food security, which would result in a shrinking agricultural sector and more dependence on imports. Food has been left to rot in fields and animals could not be slaughtered. The committee highlighted Defra’s denial of the facts and its blaming of farmers and food processors, despite all independent evidence to the contrary.

That denial goes much deeper. The department responsible for farming will still not admit its lack of a clear programme is leaving farmers unable to plan or invest. Moving away from production support for the first time in 80 years is necessary, but it makes great demands. The revolution in the subsidy system needed detailed planning and explanation if it were not to undermine confidence. Piecemeal announcements, limited information and a refusal to put food security as agriculture’s primary purpose leaves the industry rudderless. Labour shortages and spiralling costs only exacerbate the failure to chart a clear and properly costed future.

Now that we have at last woken up to the dangerous world in which we live, the Government has properly produced a clear policy on energy security. It is determined the lights will not go out. For the good of the nation, we country people must demand that food security requires a parallel programme to give farmers the confidence and the clarity to produce the maximum food from our own resources.

A refusal to put food security as agriculture’s primary purpose leaves the industry rudderless