Dear my Member of Parliament

[Austin7]

A substantial majority of Farmers voted for Brexit, an equally large majority voted in a Government that is now without effective Parliamentary restraint for the next five years. We have dug our hole it is up to us to get ourselves out of it. One of the ways out is too make sure that our MPs are made aware of the reality down on the farm. We will all have different views on this so I hope in thread at least we will restrain farmer to farmer battles and go after the real target. To start the ball rolling I follow up with two recent emails to my MP who happens to be Boris's Personal Parliamentary Secretary.

 

[Austin7]

Subject: My staff are not “low-skilled workers”

Alex

Today we are sending 21.7 tons of potatoes to the London markets. That’s about 135,000 potatoes, they ride in 1,955 separate packs. The potatoes don’t wash and grade themselves, they don’t dutifully jump into those packs on their own, they don’t load themselves onto transport, they are put there by three well educated hard working EU nationals.

However, the Government, of which you are part, unforgivably regard my staff, who might well be providing your food, as “low-skilled workers” and so under the proposals leaked over the weekend they will not be allowed to work here from December this year.

Our EU staff come here to do the work where the locals will not, they can freely go home and then return, they can almost commute from Stansted. to Riga and back. The freedom to do so is an essential part of their lives. For absolutely no sensible reasonable reason this is to be stopped. It seems that all the so called “control” we have gained is the ability to shoot ourselves in the foot.

No doubt, if you come back to me, you will be saying that the Government have already confirmed that they will set up a seasonal agricultural worker’s scheme for six months during the harvest season. This is typical Boris nonsense, believe it or not the British people eat potatoes twelve months a year. In yet another scheme apparently 10,000 non-EU workers are being allowed in as harvest workers. Why-oh-why are non-EU workers preferable to our excellent EU staff? We have tried all ways to find UK staff but none have lasted for more than a week or two, even if given a job they believe it is optional if they turn up or not.

We have just been discussing our seed potato orders, seed to be planted in the spring, harvested in the Autumn of 2020 and sold right through to September 2021. The question we must ask ourselves is, are we going to have any staff to pack harvest 2020 potatoes, is it worth growing them? Indeed, looking at the Agriculture Bill is it worth growing any food at all?

Alex, for better or worse you now have your Government majority. No more excuses. I had hoped that having cast off the ERG chains we would see a more sensible pragmatic approach, but just a month in that hope has been completely dashed.

Three days after sending this email the PM made this announcement no doubt a coincidence.

 

[Austin7]

Subject : Boris and “mumbo-jumbo”

Alex

On 27 April 2018, the EU announced a total ban on neonicotinoid insecticide use.

On 30th January 2020 the US Environmental Protection Agency announced their “Regulatory Review” of neonicotinoid pesticides which amounted no more than “working with industry on developing and implementing stewardship and best management practices.”

Four days later our Prime Minister in his peroration at Greenwich said:

"We will get going with our friends in America and I share the optimism of Donald Trump and I say to all the naïve and juvenile anti-Americans in this country if there are any – there seem to be some I say grow up – and get a grip….. We will not accept any diminution in food hygiene or animal welfare standards. But I must say to the America bashers in this country if there are any that in doing free trade deals we will be governed by science and not by mumbo-jumbo because the potential is enormous."

Next day my son Tom emails me the attached photo. The fat larvae you see is only happily able to eat Tom’s crop because of the EU neonicotinoid ban. Rightly or wrongly we are all in the same position throughout the EU, but my American cousin farming in Iowa is not, he has no larvae eating his crop. Real Free trade relies on Regulatory Alignment.

Alex there is no way we can negotiate a truly “free” trade deal with America if we are led by a Prime Minister who can’t be bothered to even try and understand the issues which to him are just “mumbo-jumbo”.

Farmers do no doubt the direction the UK’s environmental, food hygiene and welfare standards are going, and it is not down. The issue is that those standards are not applied by our “friends in America".

This is just one example of many hundreds where America’s attitude to food production is at odds with ours. Chlorinated Chicken is not a food hygiene issue but it is an environmental and welfare standards issue. The American people may be healthy but their chickens and slaughter houses are not.

 

[Werzle]

Spud men are all millionaires arent they , perhaps they will have to pay higher wages for grading staff etc and live abit more of farmer lifestyle like the rest of us. ?

 

[chaffcutter]

Well put @Austin7 , I hope your MP is taking your input seriously, I wonder if the first letter really had any part in Boris’s turnaround?

 

[Austin7]

Spud men are all millionaires arent they , perhaps they will have to pay higher wages for grading staff etc and live abit more of farmer lifestyle like the rest of us. ?

I've been rumbled, had hoped we could keep our feather bedded life secret. I can now reveal the shocking truth, three Spud Men, enjoying their soft lifestyle, carrying a box of gold from the field

 

[Bald Rick]

Emailed my MP within days of her election victory. Still waiting for a reply unlike her predecessor (labour) who used to respond quite quickly.
Apparently she’s a BoJo fanboy so I suppose calling him a cock wasn’t the best idea ...