Better management the key to farmers’ futures after Brexit
Well, that’s the pantry shelves stocked, the fridge bulging, the freezer full of cartons of home-made soup, meat and home-grown fruit, ten kilos of porridge oats sitting alongside a 25kilo bag of potatoes and enough pasta to supply an Italian village for a week. Who knows when we will be able to buy pasta again?
Nothing to do with the countdown to Christmas, of course, but stockpiling against the threat of hunger and imminent starvation posed by Brexit. There’s no point speculating about the state of play on the event itself as anything written more than an hour before publication is likely to be out of date, but I think we’ve all concluded that, whatever the final outcome, it will be bad.
Bad, bad, bad. Or at least not to the liking of anyone, never mind everyone. Which, surprise, shock, is almost invariably what you get with a complicated negotiation and could have been forecast – hang on, I and many another made that forecast – almost as soon as the referendum result on whether to leave the European Union was announced.
What self-delusion was involved in thinking that the 27 other nations in the EU would give Britain a better deal to leave than we enjoyed as a member, a delusion that includes many farmers. I’ve been unable to get a voting split for Scotland’s farmers, but a substantial number voted to leave.
South of the – at present unguarded and unchecked – Border, farmers in Northumberland voted two to one to leave. The turkeysvoting-for-christmas analogy has been overdone,
but I’m going to overdo it again because it’s the best comparison there is. What made any farmer think that a British, or Scottish, government would give them a better deal than more than £3billion EU annual subsidy?
During the Brexit argument, UK government ministers have referred several times to our farmers and fishermen going to get better treatment after we leave. Time for a seasonal “Ho, ho, ho!” to that, or that fine Scottish expression of derision, “Aye, right!” a rare example of a double positive meaning a negative.
NFU Scotland has chipped in, rightly if forlornly, with proposals for what it would like to see for its members when, if and how Brexit happens. These proposals suggest a movefromarea-basedsupport payments under the EU’S common agricultural policy (CAP), worth an average of about £26,000 a year to each Scottish farm and considerably more in many cases, to a three-tier system.
This would support active farming and food production and meet environmental objectives. Financial support would be the same as at present under the CAP, but only for active farmers. That irritation of mapping to prove that the area claimed is accurate would be scrapped.
The union suggests that Brexit will be a unique opportunity to get a support policy specifically designed for Scotland
“which we have never had before”. The proposals were supported by a massive majority of NFU members – the size of majority Prime Minister at time of writing Theresa May would love to have – who attended a series of meetings this autumn.
As with the turkeys-voting-for-christmas analogy, how about another couple of golden oldies on that: They would say that, wouldn’t they, and preaching to the converted.
For a different take on financial support for farming, EU or British, I refer farmers yet again to any radio phone-in on the subject. The most recent I caught was a builder railing about unjustified tens of thousands of pounds a year in subsidies to farmers when no other industry, such as construction, gets that treatment.
I don’t say he was right. I only note that the next few calls all backed him up. I have a feeling that Alan Titchmarsh’s seasonal appeal for help for struggling farmers won’t change that builder’s mind.
Nor will NFU Scotland’s proposals change any governmental minds. Look at any section of the millions of words on Brexit and farming is well down the list of considerations. Improved management and better physical and technical performance are going to be key to the future of individual farmers, not dwindling support from any government.
By the way, Merry Christmas.