Production, protection and prices: UK food policy is in a perilous state

Farmers rightly want fair prices, but imposing red lines through green rules will not help; in fact, it will put the UK’s food security and our countryside at risk. By David Burrows.

Banana prices. The first entry in Defras' daily update email on Tuesday last week contained details of the cost and country of origin of the bananas. Irony. It is the fruit that often evokes memories of strained relations between Britain and the EU and the tenuous stories that were peddled about their flexibility (including by former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson). And it was on this morning that the current Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, was to become the first in more than 15 years to address the National Farmers Union (NFU) annual conference. His job was to reassure farmers that post-Brexit agricultural policy is in good hands.

The press room was crowded. Journalists from national newspapers jostled for seats with editors and writing teams like Farmers Weekly And Farmers Guardian as they filled themselves with buns stuffed with (as the menus say) bacon and local sausages (no room here for what one farmer later called the dying embers of investment in the alternative movement to herbal base). These two days were after all to be about British food produced by British farmers; and a fond farewell to Minette Batters, the outgoing president. I gave everything I personally could to this organization, she said during an agricultural podcast in the run-up to the event.

No one can doubt it. His opening speech was exciting and moving. She spoke about the mental health of farmers, in the short to medium term confidence is at an all-time low, but public support for the sector is at an all-time high. Last year, agriculture rose to become the second most popular profession among the public, behind nursing. I'm proud of that, Batters said, I hope you are too, you should be, you've earned this respect and recognition. This is something our politicians should also remember, she added, taking a look at the Defra ministerial team who had turned out in force to support Sunak.

Dry eyes

She talked about politics and pressure. Batters and his team had helped the British take back control and say no to the chlorine-washed chicken and hormone-treated beef that would have arrived as part of a trade deal with the United States. There is still much to fight for, she said, notably for the future of agricultural payments and agri-environmental schemes replacing the EU's Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). The last few years have been frustrating, Sunak admitted. [CAP] has done little for food productivity or the environment.

The chaos created since the Brexit vote to regain control is evident; the government's strategy to find a way out of this is much less the case. Nobody seems happy. Sunak admitted the balance was not right. He's not wrong. The problem is that farmers believe that agricultural policy, including these subsidies, has been too biased towards environmental protection rather than production, while NGOs will say that it still does not do enough for biodiversity (the lack of which also further endangers food production).

Batters captured the zeitgeist, explaining how food production has become the poor cousin of environmental protection. The government set legally binding targets to grow more trees, but only a third of the number of apple trees were planted in 2023 as growers expected. Indeed, the message was clear: farmers need more money if they want to produce more food. Around 4.5 billion, according to calculations commissioned by the NFU.

Food safety was the term on everyone's lips. But this is an environment where it is confused with food production. The government's announcement of a new annual food security index will do little to fill the gaping void in food policy. Nor will it help reverse the long-term decline of farmland wildlife, restore protected habitats to good condition, or stop pollution flowing into waterways.

Pollution from agriculture and rural land is about equal to that from the water industry, explained Alan Lovell, chairman of the Environment Agency. He was being generous: it's actually worse, according to the data presented by Lovell. Additionally, water companies are under immense public and political pressure to improve, as is the Environment Agency which must ensure they do. The spread of sewage scandals has created a foul odor, but Lovell warned farmers that they also need to wake up and smell it. It's not entirely their fault.

Eye on the Wye

The weekend before the conference The telegraph frog piece describing that the demand for cheap chicken was rampant across Britain. At the heart of this new (and growing) scandal is the River Wye, which is choked by algae blooms fueled by pollution from surrounding intensive poultry farms. Moy Park (owned by JBS), 2 Sisters Food Group, Cranswick and Avara all get an undesirable mention, as does Tesco. Blaming farmers for this mess is too simplistic, as Sustain's Ruth Westcott tried to explain. What worries me is that it's the wrong people who are being criticized for this, she said. Farmers are essentially left to their own devices and do not have viable ways to be more sustainable.

Indeed, farmers need fair prices. They can't go green if they're in the red. But we must ensure that political decision-makers do not see this as an excuse to water down the rules on environmental protection and the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions in order to avoid the bankruptcy of a more large number of farmers. The collapse of the ecology in and around the River Wye is testament to the collapse of our food system as a whole.

And the Sunaks’ plan? Offer slightly higher subsidies, as well as subsidies to build larger farm stores and ask farmers to continue doing what they do for love rather than for a decent return. If farmers wanted a reason to protest, this last comment was as good as any other. Speaking to the media afterwards, Batters admitted his nervousness that producers here would follow those in Europe and protest, especially since public support can quickly be lost if protesters interfere with life people's daily lives and it could take years to recover.

Some 94% of respondents to a survey carried out by Deltapoll and published at the conference said it was important for the Government to support British agriculture and food production. The Prime Minister insisted this was the case. I support you, he declared at the end of his speech. But there is no plan. Work, like Footprint reported, are also out of ideas. The Liberal Democrats have proposed injecting an additional 1 billion into the agricultural budget.

Eat your meat

The government's approach to food policy appears to be going backwards rather than forwards (as was the Brexit promise). There is no plan, and as Kate Nicholls, chief executive of UKHospitality, suggested: the question is whether the government, through public procurement, is paying a fair price for the food it buys .

Nicholls, who also said businesses should not be ashamed of imports that meet the country's standards, took part in a session on the future of food with IGD CEO Sarah Bradbury and Susan Jebb, President of the Food Standards Agency. They addressed labeling including eco-scores but danced carefully around the issue of meat consumption. This of course remains a red line for the Batters and the NFU. Our red line is we don't cut livestock and dairy, Batters said. Farmers Guardian earlier this month. Sunak took just 90 seconds to agree with her. [Ive] I have enjoyed our high quality British meat so I can continue to encourage people to eat.