It’s time to splash the cash to help our farmers

A government with farmers’ interests generally at heart wouldn’t hesitate to offer them extra support in a difficult season such as this, Bridgwater and West Somerset MP Ian Liddell-Grainger tells Defra Secretary Steve Barclay. But will the flood hardship

DEAR Steve There are times when I read the pronouncements from your department on what it is doing to support farmers and I am prepared to take them fully at face value and offer a modest vote of thanks for the fact that we are looking after one of the country’s most important (but most undervalued) economic sectors.

Then there are other occasions when severe doubts creep in to undermine that belief. One of those occurred in the last few days when I read of the £400 million underspend in the farming budget over the last two years.

I know the Treasury is not seeking to claw back the money yet and that it will be carried forward into the next spending round but that is not the point. We should be making the best use of that money as soon as possible and getting it into struggling farmers’ pockets now. However, I am prepared to mute my criticism somewhat after reading about the flood hardship grants that are going to be distributed to the worst-hit producers.

Nothing less than we should be doing, in my opinion. It’s what other countries do. And it’s the best use we can make of the spare dosh because if it goes unspent for a third year then the Treasury’s footsteps may well be heard ringing ominously down the corridor.

My only question is as to whether even the top whack of £25,000 is going to be enough for some people.

Things are unbelievably tough for farmers at the moment and they get tougher with every weather front. Plantings have been delayed. Cattle have had to be expensively housed. And the longer the current weather persists the less chance there will be of things catching up in time for people to make at least a modest return on this year’s activities.

Rather than squirrelling any money away, we should be distributing as much of it as possible. Because the rainy day has, literally, arrived.

There is no merit in claiming to be a good steward of the Government’s funds if that process is threatening to drive farmers over the brink into failure. And I can’t think you would be content to have all those failures laid directly at Defra’s door.

The evidence to support even more largesse being directed at the industry is abundant and all too visible. But let me just take you a few steps down the line to show you how serious things are. Even assuming cereal crops can be planted at some point soon we are looking at a massively depressed harvest yield this year.

Millers have already been warned to lower their expectations of what will be available come autumn, in some cases by more than 60 per cent. Flour is going to be chronically short and expensive. You can expect bread prices to soar.

Under such circumstances the first reaction would be to look abroad to make up the deficit. There is just one snag: every other country in Europe is suffering in exactly the same way. Bad weather is also causing problems right across the US and Canada. There is likely to be little, if any, spare tonnage to export to the UK.

I would hate to be standing up at that point and telling everyone that this was just the scenario I was warning could materialise if we went on relying on other countries to supply us with as near as dammit 50 per cent of our food.

But I may have to.

Yours ever

Ian

> Cattle have had to be expensively housed during this long, wet winter, says Ian Liddell-Grainger