Western Morning News (Saturday)
MPs: farmers need support to feed the nation
WESTCOUNTRY MPs have highlighted the importance of supporting farmers in feeding the nation and called for greater clarity over post-Brexit payments.
In a debate held by MPs at Westminster Hall, politicians also argued migrant worker schemes must provide sufficient farm labour to ensure crops are not left unpicked to rot in the fields.
The debate, chaired by South West Devon MP Sir Gary Streeter, was called by Simon Jupp, East Devon MP, who said the country must take advantage of the freedom to agree trade deals post-Brexit, “but also work harder to take the farming community with us”.
“The Government rightly want to use our new-found powers to reward farmers for doing more to help improve the environment while also producing high-quality food,” he said. “However, the farming industry needs more certainty to both survive and thrive. [...] Farmers, agents and others are eager to see how various elements of the new farming funding system will underpin their sustainable and resilient businesses. Support schemes will need to be accessible and simple, and they will also need to reward farmers fairly for taking part in them.”
He urged Defra to accelerate the roll-out of the new Sustainable Farming Incentive scheme replacing EU payments, but argued that “incentivising farmers to take part in rewilding schemes or to plant trees on prime agricultural land may seem a worthy policy in Whitehall, but it will not put food on the table”.
“Farmers have said to me, ‘You cannot eat trees.’ Needless to say, a balance is required. Food production and environmental sustainability are not necessarily in competition, and nor are they mutually exclusive, but support schemes should always encourage farmers to produce food. That is the only way to deliver on the ambition of the UK food strategy to maintain or increase our food self-sufficiency, which is all the more important given the ongoing war in Ukraine,” he said.
Mr Jupp said farmers faced rising costs for everything from energy to fertiliser and stressed the ongoing issue of workforce shortages. “Defra must keep working closely with the Home Office on a long-term strategy for the food and farming workforce,” he said. He added that when it came to supermarket pricing structures: “They have had their jam; it is time that farmers had some too.”
Barnsley Central MP Dan Jarvis told Wednesday’s debate: “According to the National Farmers’ Union, we now produce 60% of our domestic food consumption, down from 80% in the 1980s. The Government have an important role to play in reversing that trend, but we can all play our part by buying local produce.”
Former Home Secretary Priti Patel told the audience farmers were “being squeezed by the supermarkets. Everyone will be aware of the margins that supermarkets chase. The Government must hold the supermarkets to account”. On the issue of migrant farm labour she added: “We should not always depend on overseas labour, not just in farming, but for our country and wider economy.”
South Dorset MP Richard Drax argued that certainty was “desperately needed” as the Basic Payment Scheme was replaced, saying: “There is a big hole there; and as a result many farmers, not least those in remoter parts of our country, will struggle. That hole needs to be filled. We need certainty, and they need reassurance. The alternative, which none of us wants, is cheap imports. That is not the way forward.”
Derek Thomas, St Ives MP, said: “Food production and biodiversity can complement each other; our mistake has been to give farmers the impression that they bear responsibility for our countryside and natural environment declining, and their job is to fix it. I disagree, but there is no denying that consumers, driven by supermarkets and Government policy on inflation, hunger for ever cheaper food; they often want to pay less than the cost of producing it.”
He added: “We will not be forgiven by those living in the countryside if we fail to support them and to enable them to play the role they want to play, and are keen to play, in feeding the nation and making the countryside a place that is both secure at home and generous to the world around us.”
Defra minister Mark Spencer told the debate: “This will be an exciting moment in UK agriculture: we will move in a direction where we can balance growing food [...] with improving our environment and our biodiversity.”
Regarding seasonal workers he said: “I am not in a position to announce those figures, but we are in close discussions with our friends in the Home Office and hope to give clarity on that issue as soon as possible.”
And on the new ELMS payments the minister told the debate: “I am very keen to ensure that farmers want to take part in the schemes and feel part of the solution.”