Cultivating goodwill

Working with public will help industry

Popular TV personality and the UK’s most popular ginger farmer, Adam Henson, has reiterated his call for agriculture to be taught as a GCSE in schools down south. His main reasoning behind this is that he believes it would be an effective way to combat the scourge of “militant vegans” who in recent years have taken a much more hard-hitting approach to trying to convince us all to move to a plant-based lifestyle.

Whilst I understand Mr Henson’s

frustrations around the current vegan movement, I don’t feel labelling them as militant, in the same way we would a member of ISIS, is beneficial for our industry and just feeds the “us and them” mentality.

So what is the answer to better education around our industry?

It has to start long before secondary school age and carry on long after childhood. It has to be a cultural, and most importantly a political, change that is linked into big mainstream issues that the general public are concerned and passionate about.

It is very easy for us to be consumed by current political unrest and uncertainty, but it’s becoming increasingly clear that the biggest threat to our industry in the long term is not Brexit but instead the rise in public concern over the world’s climate.

The rise in veganism and most recently the protests like those seen in London by Extinction Rebellion have already seen UK agriculture being targeted as an enemy of the planet.

Whilst some of the issues raised around UK agricultural practices are valid and need to be reviewed, a large proportion of the propaganda used against the industry is misinformed. Our approach as an industry at times can be simply to clash with these claims and dismiss them.

Would we not be much better to work with the public to address their concerns? That has to be more beneficial than fighting against them.

Picture: PA An Extinction Rebellion protester at a demonstration in London.