Farmers demand UK ‘food security’

THE Tory leadership candidates should hold a special hustings to tackle the neglect of countryside issues in the campaign, the President of the National Farmers’ Union of England and Wales says today.

Minette Batters, writing for the Mail on Sunday, urges Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak to address the ‘abject failure by government to take seriously the real and pressing problem of feeding our nation’.

Ms Batters was an energetic advocate for UK farmers during Ms Truss’s post-Brexit negotiations with major economies like Australia.

She warned the then International Trade Secretary against deals that would, for example, allow duty-free Australian beef to flood the UK market. The MoS highlighted such issues as part of our Save Our Family Farms campaign.

Ms Batters warns that the Ukraine war, combined with changing weather, has led to the ‘terrifying problem of where our food will come from’.

She writes: ‘To date we’ve had absolutely no plan from the Government that Britain will carry on its role as a food-producing nation. The next Prime Minister has a chance to put this right. To make Britain more secure and to help solve the challenge of feeding the world.’

She asks: ‘Which of the two candidates for PM will be the rural champion? More importantly who will prioritise the future of British food?’

Calling for the candidates to have a farming hustings where they address the issues and outline their ideas on food production, Ms Batters says: ‘Britain needs a plan and it needs one urgently. Before it’s too late.’