- Location
- Durham, UK
Good morning FFA
Well at least – and at last – we have some clarity on future farming policy in the UK, or at least the current George Eustice version of it.
We are to devote ourselves mainly to returning everything to nature while producing one or two niche products in the few bits of land that won’t be covered in trees.
Meanwhile relying on the rest of the world to feed us under the astoundingly good trade deals the UK’s world-class ministerial team has been cutting around the globe.
Well why not? I’m sure consumers will soon stop noticing the chlorine tainting the flavour of their chicken; they will be able to dismiss from their minds the thought of all the hormones that were pumped into the cattle that provided their beef; and they will even, I expect, put to one side the unmitigated cruelty that is still inherent in many of Australia’s farming systems – as I detailed last week.
And, not having been told much about them anyway, they won’t be troubled by the appalling squalor of the livestock sector in Eastern Europe whence I anticipate (such are the margins to be made) cut-price beef will continue to arrive here.
And even if they were concerned there will be little they can do about it, given the volumes that will go straight in to the processing sector.
So George Eustice’s repeated assurances that he would be looking after British farmers after Brexit have amounted to offering them conservation deals that won’t repay the time and expense involved in applying for them plus an unspoken pledge that he won’t stab them in the back more than once a month.
Master Osborne’s short-term ruse to enable the Government to wriggle out of making meaningful support payments should, however, be viewed against the perspective of 20th century history, particularly the 1930s. A period when we were grandly relying on our empire to supply us with much of our food – even cheddar, whose name and formula we had willingly given away because they could make better, consistent-quality stuff in the modern facilities of Australia and New Zealand than they could in the UK’s run-down, unhygienic dairies. Then came the war, and an immediate food shortage so severe that we were obliged to dig up Hyde Park and plant carrots.
There will be no U-boats cutting our supply routes us this time round. But an even bigger threat is posed by climate change. We have had a few, relatively minor problems with the weather in the UK but by and large we can still grow food pretty much as we always have.
But we are in the process of striking trade deals with countries where drought, huge floods and other climatic extremes are already impacting heavily on their ability to produce food – as the devastation caused to global wheat harvests showed only too clearly last year.
And when those countries are eventually faced with a choice between feeding their own people and feeding us, who is going to take priority?
What this state of affairs does show beyond any doubt is the NFU is truly a spent force, with its president’s fine words about securing a good deal for its members replaced by her muted confession that life is going to be tough for farmers. Because she has been stitched up just as comprehensively as the rest of us.
Well I have some advice for her and for George. She might as well disband the NFU because the younger generation of farmers who are going to have to deal with this situation (unlike the oldies who sit round its top table) want nothing to do with it, its president, her meaningless promises, its time-wasting-meetings, it’s communist-style set piece conferences, and its lack of democracy and accountability.
They just want to get on and farm, which they are already doing. And, as one aspiring young dairy farmer from North Wales put it to me this week, whatever George Eustice’s re-greening policies at the moment, he at least sees every square inch of what we rewild now being ploughed up well within his lifetime because we shall need to it grow food again.
And I believe him.
Well at least – and at last – we have some clarity on future farming policy in the UK, or at least the current George Eustice version of it.
We are to devote ourselves mainly to returning everything to nature while producing one or two niche products in the few bits of land that won’t be covered in trees.
Meanwhile relying on the rest of the world to feed us under the astoundingly good trade deals the UK’s world-class ministerial team has been cutting around the globe.
Well why not? I’m sure consumers will soon stop noticing the chlorine tainting the flavour of their chicken; they will be able to dismiss from their minds the thought of all the hormones that were pumped into the cattle that provided their beef; and they will even, I expect, put to one side the unmitigated cruelty that is still inherent in many of Australia’s farming systems – as I detailed last week.
And, not having been told much about them anyway, they won’t be troubled by the appalling squalor of the livestock sector in Eastern Europe whence I anticipate (such are the margins to be made) cut-price beef will continue to arrive here.
And even if they were concerned there will be little they can do about it, given the volumes that will go straight in to the processing sector.
So George Eustice’s repeated assurances that he would be looking after British farmers after Brexit have amounted to offering them conservation deals that won’t repay the time and expense involved in applying for them plus an unspoken pledge that he won’t stab them in the back more than once a month.
Master Osborne’s short-term ruse to enable the Government to wriggle out of making meaningful support payments should, however, be viewed against the perspective of 20th century history, particularly the 1930s. A period when we were grandly relying on our empire to supply us with much of our food – even cheddar, whose name and formula we had willingly given away because they could make better, consistent-quality stuff in the modern facilities of Australia and New Zealand than they could in the UK’s run-down, unhygienic dairies. Then came the war, and an immediate food shortage so severe that we were obliged to dig up Hyde Park and plant carrots.
There will be no U-boats cutting our supply routes us this time round. But an even bigger threat is posed by climate change. We have had a few, relatively minor problems with the weather in the UK but by and large we can still grow food pretty much as we always have.
But we are in the process of striking trade deals with countries where drought, huge floods and other climatic extremes are already impacting heavily on their ability to produce food – as the devastation caused to global wheat harvests showed only too clearly last year.
And when those countries are eventually faced with a choice between feeding their own people and feeding us, who is going to take priority?
What this state of affairs does show beyond any doubt is the NFU is truly a spent force, with its president’s fine words about securing a good deal for its members replaced by her muted confession that life is going to be tough for farmers. Because she has been stitched up just as comprehensively as the rest of us.
Well I have some advice for her and for George. She might as well disband the NFU because the younger generation of farmers who are going to have to deal with this situation (unlike the oldies who sit round its top table) want nothing to do with it, its president, her meaningless promises, its time-wasting-meetings, it’s communist-style set piece conferences, and its lack of democracy and accountability.
They just want to get on and farm, which they are already doing. And, as one aspiring young dairy farmer from North Wales put it to me this week, whatever George Eustice’s re-greening policies at the moment, he at least sees every square inch of what we rewild now being ploughed up well within his lifetime because we shall need to it grow food again.
And I believe him.