When farmers protest, our rulers need to listen

FARMERS taking to the streets of London to protest should have sent shivers up the spine of our Prime Minister. Yes, a whole raft of workers from teachers to train drivers have all had their moment at the picket line in recent years but neither group – nor nurses or doctors – could ever in a month of Sundays be described as traditionally Tory.

Never mind England’s green and pleasant land, our countryside has for as long as anybody cares to remember has been as blue as the sky.

With right to roam, inheritance tax and that historical unspoken chip on its shoulder about anybody who owns more than a postage-stamp sized piece of land, Labour is no natural bedfellow of farming folk.

Those who work in agriculture might not even hold the Conservatives in any kind of high regard, but for many it has always been a case of better the devil you know and at least the landed gentry among them have some understanding of the rural way of life.

This is why Monday’s convoy of tractors converging on Westminster needs to be taken so seriously.

Farmers have an in-built aversion to anything that takes them away from their work. They also don’t, as a rule, like spending money unnecessarily. Many will have come over in a cold sweat simply thinking about how much diesel was used by tractors travelling to the capital. Especially when one considers how heavily the Government has clamped down on farmers' use of duty-free red diesel.

In recent months, as farmers from across the 27-nation European Union have snarled-up cities such as Paris protesting against what they see as unnecessary bureaucratic rules, clean-air and soil targets and unfair competition from abroad that, they say, is driving them toward bankruptcy, many must have thought it would never happen in our country. And while yes, turnout was tame compared to the angry mobs of abroad, the fact this week’s protest happened at all is hugely symbolic.

Campaign groups united to organise the convoy along the River Thames towards the Houses of Parliament before circling Parliament Square to cheers and honking horns.

Their union flag embellished banners sported slogans such as “stop substandard imports” and the irony of this isn’t lost on the farming community; many of whom voted in favour of Brexit out of opposition to the EU’s much-criticised Common Agricultural Policy.

Instead of the level playing field of their dreams, many believe post-Brexit trade deals between countries including Australia and New Zealand have opened the door to cheap imports that are undercutting

British producers. They say it’s a slap in the face that they abide by some of the highest animal welfare standards in the world while supermarket shelves are so often stacked with products of questionable origin; many masquerading behind quasi red-whiteand-blue packaging. While we jump through hoops on our own land in our own country, nobody ever seems to dare question the huge carbon footprint of food arriving from all over the world on planes. There is also annoyance that the schemes set to take over from EU farming subsidies have too much emphasis on the environment.

While every genuine farmer since Adam was a lad likes to plant a tree or new hedgerow for their livestock to shelter against, many are worried about the Government’s obsession with planting millions of trees. Land prices are sky high as investors buy it up to use for carbon offsetting. Put simply, the big boys get to concrete over and develop other areas of land so long as they are paying somebody somewhere to stick some trees in a forgotten field goodness knows where.

Renewable energy is another obsession that sensible farming folk are fearful of. Surely there are a million and one industrial and brownfield sites that should get the call to arms – or rather panels – before writing the death warrant on productive farmland? The old adage that they aren’t making any more land is so very true, as is the line about wise old stagers of the industry farming like they are going to live forever. Agriculture reaps no rewards from popularist short-termism. Good farmers deal in decades not days.

Yours truly can be guilty of looking at the industry through rose-tinted spectacles and while they have my support until the cows come home the “Thank a farmer” type slogan has never sat easily. Nobody owes anybody a living. The younger Agri generation, especially, would do well to remember this. Talking into mobile phones and not pulling over to let tailbacks of traffic pass while behind the wheel of hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of kit isn’t a good look. Same goes for the huge farming companies and estates, greedily jumping on the bandwagon of sustainable farming schemes.

Nobody has to buy British food. So, when shoppers do – especially at times like this weekend’s Easter celebrations – farming needs to take its flat cap off to the consumer.

Sarah Todd is a journalist specialising in farming and country life. Read her weekly column every Wednesday in The Yorkshire Post.