Western Daily Press (Saturday)
Why food security is essential for the UK
Ro Collingborn says relying on imports is dangerous but farmers need help to feed our own nation
WHEN it was announced that an esteemed dairy farmer like Roger Evans has given up milking, it sends shock waves through the British dairy industry.
Here is a man who had milked all his life, and defended and explained dairy farming through his writings and membership of various boards and committees.
The loss of his rented acres and a clear TB test heavily influenced his decision, but had he been a younger man, had more land been available locally and had dairy farming been more profitable, maybe he would have continued.
Since dairy farmers are leaving the industry in droves, treasure the milkman who puts the glass bottles of the white stuff on your doorstep.
Hopefully he and you can negotiate a milk price that will keep him able to continue in the industry.
Far better than the plastic bottles (supermarkets can’t do glass) that the supermarket puts in your trolley, and which have been supplied by a farmer who has seen his price driven down to extinction.
Since the start of 2020 and Brexit, exporting into Europe has been extremely difficult for UK food producers, as they face red tape, excessive paperwork and delays in transport.
Meanwhile, the EU is able to export its produce into the UK without any controls.
These were due to be set up and working from July this year, after already being delayed three times. Now the Government has put the implentation back to the end of 2023. This is truly shocking and one-sided in the extreme. The EU must be really happy!
Once Brexit was agreed, farming was always going to be the sacrificial lamb. This was even more obvious as Boris started rushing all round the world to get trade deals.
I remember being told by the Brexiteers that Europe needed us more than we needed them so nothing would change. Well, a lot has changed, but not for the EU. It still has frictionless trade with the UK.
The UK has every obstacle thrown in its face when it tries to export, including reams of paperwork. Most smaller exporters have given up in despair.
How likely is it that there will be any controls set up in time for imports from the new trade deals with countries outside the EU? The situation is completely crazy and shows absolute disregard for our farmers and the country’s food security.
Boris’s plan to get Brexit done at any costs, without thinking through the details, has led to a complete trade impasse in Northern Ireland and also endangered the Good Friday Agreement.
Back in normal times, Boris, with only Brexit to deal with, was trying to negotiate a trade agreement involving imports of food from Australia and New Zealand, having failed with the US. We were assured that these trade deals would allow us to advantageously export whisky. You just wonder how many farms that would have benefited.
With container ships stockpiling in Japan, Boris has scuttled off to India to set up another trade deal. Other countries put their farmers and consumers first. Indonesia has just announced a surprise export ban on palm oil to protect its home market, due to a worldwide scarcity of oils.
This shows how short-sighted it is to rely on imports. Scarcity of food will cause lawlessness. You can hang a man for stealing a sheep, but if his family is hungry he will still steal a sheep.
Currently every household in Britain must be concerned not only with the rise in the cost of living, but the imminently explosive cost of food. Consumer inflation is nearing 10%, for farmers it’s at least 23%.
Electricity is a major concern. The number of companies in the market has reduced from 38 to 18 and they are no longer competing with each other. Contracts going forward are a major headache and causing sleepless nights. Pig and poultry producers are now desperately struggling with the astronomical cost of feed. It was the perfect tsunami of Brexit, the pandemic and the war in Ukraine which caused this, when any one of these issues on its own would have created inflationary pressures.
We must have food security in this country. If we have learnt nothing from the last three disasters, this is the one fact that should be blindingly obvious to our politicians.
We can produce food in this country to a high standard and availability but we need to do it with an income which will support the business and reinvestment to move forward and also provide a suitable lifestyle to attract the next generation.
Already we are seeing sons and daughters shying away from the 24/7 that their fathers practised to a more suitable lifestyle with time off to enjoy their family. An illustration of this occurred to us last Saturday when we took our grandchildren for a rare day out to the Hawk Conservancy Trust, only to be interrupted by a phone call to say the milking parlour had broken down. On a farm, 24/7 means just that!
The alternatives are there – solar panels, battery farms, glamping, holiday lets, business units – collect the rent and play golf. Why not? If you can supress the desire to farm you were born with, should you continue to feel the urge and responsibility to feed the nation when the rewards are just a constant angst for the family farm providing barely enough to live on? Here in North Wiltshire, we’re seeing many more applications for solar and battery farms. Can’t we feed our own nation and protect the environment too?
■ Ro Collingborn has been dairy chairman of the Women’s Food and Farming Union, on the Milk Development Council, the Veterinary Products Committee, the RSPCA Council and was a Wiltshire Wildlife Trust director.