Eildon Hill
Member
Struggling farmers have been abandoned by the Government
13 April 2020 • 8:00pm
Worst affected are the trout farmers as supermarkets have dropped selling trout portions to simplify their operations, and fishing lakes are shut (perhaps unnecessarily) so aren’t restocking. Millions of trout may have to be euthanised and tipped into landfill as their ponds become overstocked.
Meanwhile, queues outside supermarkets show that there is no let-up in demand. It is estimated that in normal times 20 per cent of food is consumed outside the home. The closure of restaurants and cafes has been a challenge for the supermarkets – but also a golden opportunity. Special offers have been withdrawn, and prices have been nudged up.
You would think that farmers might at least receive more for their produce, given the constrictions on supply, but in fact the reverse has happened. Beef farmers are bracing themselves for another 10p per kilo drop in the price later this week. Milk is around 70p per litre in the shops while the spot price being offered to farmers has fallen to as low as 15p in some parts of the country. The farmer share of the meat retail price was already at an all-time low before the pandemic; it has only fallen lower since.
The closure of the catering sector has undoubtedly had a knock-on effect. The more expensive cuts of meat normally served in restaurants are apparently not being bought to eat at home. The milk that is normally sold in bags to catering establishments is now being wasted through an inability of the dairy processors to switch it into bottles or cartons.
It was entirely predictable that the supply chain would be affected in this way but the Government has persevered in a laissez-faire approach epitomised by the decision to leave it up to supermarkets to ensure we have enough food and to decide whether to ration certain goods.
For their part, Sainsbury’s and Asda arranged for the import of cheap beef from Poland where welfare standards are often lower. The supermarkets refute the allegation, but as far as British farmers are concerned, opting for cheap imports at a time when many face serious financial struggles looks like profiteering.
DEFRA Secretary George Eustice was recently shamed into putting out a statement thanking British farmers but the fact remains that livestock farmers are now losing money through his department’s failure to plan for issues in the supply chain preventing the flow of British food from field to fork. His department has been too slow to re-allocate labour or even request military assistance to drive milk tankers and backfill food production workers.
Poor prices, and in some cases the inability of farms to sell produce at all, combined with the complete shutdown of rural tourism, have led to serious cashflow problems on British farms. In the short term the Chancellor’s rescue package for business needs rural-proofing urgently as currently farms do not really benefit. You cannot furlough farm workers as animals still need to be fed and
and milked, and farms are already exempt from business rates so do not benefit from a rates holiday.
A temporary market intervention and price support mechanisms need to be implemented now. In the longer term we need a coherent food strategy that addresses these failures and protects primary producers from power inequalities in the supply chain. It has long been a bone of contention that the Groceries Adjudicator only has influence on the last link in the supply chain. That needs to change.
There are farmers endangering their health by carrying on working with the virus. Many may now lose their livelihoods. The Government needs to address its food blind spot urgently.
www.telegraph.co.uk
A temporary market intervention and price support mechanisms need to be implemented now. In the longer term we need a coherent food strategy that addresses these failures and protects primary producers from power inequalities in the supply chain. It has long been a bone of contention that the Groceries Adjudicator only has influence on the last link in the supply chain. That needs to change.
There are farmers endangering their health by carrying on working with the virus. Many may now lose their livelihoods. The Government needs to address its food blind spot urgently.
13 April 2020 • 8:00pm
The effect of the pandemic on our food supply chains is really starting to bite, with farmers suffering most. Social media is full of heartbreaking stories of every dairy farmer’s worst nightmare – milk being poured away because tankers are no longer picking it up. On beef farms cattle are waiting in a backlog for slaughter, the abattoirs and processors having been hit, first by the exodus of foreign workers prior to the lockdown, and now by staff shortages caused by illness and the need to maintain social distancing.
Worst affected are the trout farmers as supermarkets have dropped selling trout portions to simplify their operations, and fishing lakes are shut (perhaps unnecessarily) so aren’t restocking. Millions of trout may have to be euthanised and tipped into landfill as their ponds become overstocked.
Meanwhile, queues outside supermarkets show that there is no let-up in demand. It is estimated that in normal times 20 per cent of food is consumed outside the home. The closure of restaurants and cafes has been a challenge for the supermarkets – but also a golden opportunity. Special offers have been withdrawn, and prices have been nudged up.
You would think that farmers might at least receive more for their produce, given the constrictions on supply, but in fact the reverse has happened. Beef farmers are bracing themselves for another 10p per kilo drop in the price later this week. Milk is around 70p per litre in the shops while the spot price being offered to farmers has fallen to as low as 15p in some parts of the country. The farmer share of the meat retail price was already at an all-time low before the pandemic; it has only fallen lower since.
The closure of the catering sector has undoubtedly had a knock-on effect. The more expensive cuts of meat normally served in restaurants are apparently not being bought to eat at home. The milk that is normally sold in bags to catering establishments is now being wasted through an inability of the dairy processors to switch it into bottles or cartons.
It was entirely predictable that the supply chain would be affected in this way but the Government has persevered in a laissez-faire approach epitomised by the decision to leave it up to supermarkets to ensure we have enough food and to decide whether to ration certain goods.
For their part, Sainsbury’s and Asda arranged for the import of cheap beef from Poland where welfare standards are often lower. The supermarkets refute the allegation, but as far as British farmers are concerned, opting for cheap imports at a time when many face serious financial struggles looks like profiteering.
DEFRA Secretary George Eustice was recently shamed into putting out a statement thanking British farmers but the fact remains that livestock farmers are now losing money through his department’s failure to plan for issues in the supply chain preventing the flow of British food from field to fork. His department has been too slow to re-allocate labour or even request military assistance to drive milk tankers and backfill food production workers.
Poor prices, and in some cases the inability of farms to sell produce at all, combined with the complete shutdown of rural tourism, have led to serious cashflow problems on British farms. In the short term the Chancellor’s rescue package for business needs rural-proofing urgently as currently farms do not really benefit. You cannot furlough farm workers as animals still need to be fed and
and milked, and farms are already exempt from business rates so do not benefit from a rates holiday.
A temporary market intervention and price support mechanisms need to be implemented now. In the longer term we need a coherent food strategy that addresses these failures and protects primary producers from power inequalities in the supply chain. It has long been a bone of contention that the Groceries Adjudicator only has influence on the last link in the supply chain. That needs to change.
There are farmers endangering their health by carrying on working with the virus. Many may now lose their livelihoods. The Government needs to address its food blind spot urgently.
Struggling farmers have been abandoned by the Government
Falling prices, collapsing supply chains and the evisceration of rural tourism combined with ministerial blunders have left the agricultural sector facing ruin
www.telegraph.co.uk
A temporary market intervention and price support mechanisms need to be implemented now. In the longer term we need a coherent food strategy that addresses these failures and protects primary producers from power inequalities in the supply chain. It has long been a bone of contention that the Groceries Adjudicator only has influence on the last link in the supply chain. That needs to change.
There are farmers endangering their health by carrying on working with the virus. Many may now lose their livelihoods. The Government needs to address its food blind spot urgently.
