Sticking points and potential opportunities in farms shake up
Some early winter snow last week brought many column inches on the winter of 1962-63 as if that was now likely to happen. 1963 was the coldest winter since 1740, frozen sea, huge 20 foot snow-drifts, the cold winter lasting from December 22 to March 4. I was a young lad and we were snowed in for weeks in Snowdonia with the real bonus that our little local primary school was shut for six weeks. How would today’s snowflake population cope with that?
Bird flu outbreaks continue and all poultry should now be indoors in this country in order to protect them from infection. Covid-19 has caused problems in abattoirs and has hit the poultry and now the pig industry hard, as throughput drops and animals are unable to move off farm at the optimum time.
With Germany suffering from African Swine fever (ASF) and their exports to China cancelled, it is frustrating for British pig producers that they are missing out on that export opportunity due to processing plants in this country still waiting for certification whilst prices drop.
Secretary of State George Eustice hails the agriculture roadmap as a moment of great change; the farming community feels that whilst the roadmap is certainly ambitious, it is short on detail. More information is emerging, but the industry is still struggling to see the whole picture and how farmers will fare under the new regime.
Mr Eustice describes the new system as the most significant change to farming support in 50 years and everyone agrees with that. This column has warned for some time that cuts to the existing support will not be linear and the farming press has now realised that whilst cuts to the existing support scheme start next year (2021), with a five per cent cut for those receiving £30,000 in support or less, 25 per cent for those receiving more than that, in 2022 everyone will face a 20 per cent cut rising to 35 per cent by 2023 and 50 per cent by 2024 with additional reductions for larger claimants.
Given that many farmers make a substantial loss on their farms without the farm payment, as these cuts bite they will suffer unless they can access other payments for the ‘public goods’ government are willing to pay for. Details of that new scheme are therefore vital in future planning on many farms.
George Eustice believes that as farmers hit hard times, the costs of land, rent and inputs such as fertiliser will fall, but agricultural commodities are driven by global markets these days and the chances of higher prices are slim considering that retail is also a global market and access to cheaper food from other countries could be far easier now that we have left the EU. Given that the single farm payment accounts for around 60 per cent of profit (often much more) on most farms, the fact that it is going to disappear fast is worrying. Large farms will lose two thirds of their payments in four years, and whilst there is less public sympathy for large farms, everyone else will not be far behind. This is unprecedented speed and agriculture will need to radically change in order to survive intact.
There will be no doubt opportunities and it will be interesting to see if it’s any easier for new entrants, who have been largely locked out of this industry for decades, to get their foot in the door. We desperately need new blood and new thinking in this industry and if the new dawn facilitates this, then some good will come of it. I am still struggling to find much mention of food production in the text; trees don’t really help if you are hungry!
Welsh farmer Iwan Pughe-Jones, inspired by Marcus Rashford, has launched a ‘donate a sheep’ appeal in order to help families in need this Christmas. Farmers can donate a sheep to sell with the proceeds given to the Salvation Army in Aberystwyth. Iwan invited Captain Claire Durrant to address a Farmers’ Union of Wales meeting on how the Salvation Army intends to assist families who are struggling to put food on the table and pay bills during the pandemic.
Markets in Welshpool, Dolgellau, Oswestry, Machynlleth and Rhyader have all agreed to be part of the scheme. Organisers also plan to link up with processors to assist with the appeal with Randall Parker Foods and Dunbia involved. Major George Barker, divisional commander of the Salvation Army is delighted to receive support from farmers; full marks Iwan!
I see that scientists have mapped our galaxy which has roughly two billion stars within it. Given that the Hubble telescope has now found so many more, we think there are 200billion galaxies out there and as space is developing faster than the speed of light and our own Milky Way is expanding at around 1.4 times the speed of sound where does that leave you and me? How important is Brexit in this context? I mention all this because as we rely more and more on science to provide answers for present and future problems there are many who are suspicious of it. The breakthrough in vaccine manufacturing as a result of the virus’ genome mapped out by a Chinese scientist is brilliant and another incredible breakthrough as British based artificial intelligence company (Deepmind) predict the shape of proteins.
Identifying the shapes and protein building blocks will advance the understanding and treatment of Alzheimer’s, cancers, virus and how to combat or cure some of them. There is now a new malaria vaccine, with scientists citing the possibilities of many solutions for problems such as plastic contamination, and better solutions for climate change.
Yet many don’t trust or believe scientific progress. I was staggered to hear that so many people are not willing to take Covid-19 vaccine; the answer to a virus that has wrecked pretty much everything across the world in the last year or so. We suddenly have several vaccines which will become available next year and we have this total nonsense; it is staggering.
Stupid political jingoism pretending we have done so well here with our regulation, when it is in fact a German vaccine, found by a company the brilliant Turkish immigrant couple Ugur Sahin and Ozlem Tureci founded does not help, but we can expect plenty more of that from now on.
Everything will be spun for all its worth as our government struggles to explain the consequences of Brexit in the shops, on farms, in the car factories and so on. It is going to be a very long year ahead and I predict that during 2021 the only ones enjoying themselves will be the media; what a feast there is for them as they dissect and pour over all the detail and why’s and wherefores.
As I write we are led to believe that the Brexit negotiations are on a knife edge and could go one way or another. This column has always believed there will be a deal, but the difference between the deal sought now and no deal is not nearly as big as it once was; either way experts predict that there will be real problems and everyone now accepts that we will be poorer as a nation for some time to come.