Charles Clover can be irascible. I well remember, long ago, phoning him to try to persuade him of the newsworthiness of an RSPB story and hearing him growling ‘Boring boring, boring boring, boring boring, …‘ down the line at me.
But he is worth listening to, and reading, even when wrong, and in his column in today’s Sunday Times he is absolutely right.
Under the headline ‘Mad EU disease: scrapping the one sane farm subsidy‘ he ploughs the same furrow as this blog has done all week.
You should read it all as he puts it very well, but you have to pay to read it online (and I hate giving Rupert Murdoch my money) so I’ll give you a few quotes so that you can get the flavour of it.
‘Of all the things that Europe pays for through its disgraceful £47bn pork barrel of an agricultural policy, the recovery of farmland birds has to be one of the most justifiable’
‘…there is almost no rational justification for 75% of the CAP budget, the bit known as Pillar1. This subsidises farmers according to the amount of land they own, ensuring that those who need the least get the most money.’
”If you wanted to support rural incomes, which is theoretically the point, you could save an awful lot of money by means-testing the recipients.’
”…can we rely on Britain to say that scrapping Pillar 2 would be utterly scandalous? Er no…the EU budget is a matter for the Treasury, which thinks it would be fine to cut the CAP any way you like.’
‘Peter Kendall…has convinced himself that it is fine to get rid of conservation farming because the world needs to grow more food. This is a delusional misreading of recent government reports on food security.’
‘A growing number of farmers think the line the NFU is taking is a disgrace’
There is more, but that gives you a flavour of Charles’s views – which are remarkably similar to my own, though I have no doubt that there will come a time when we are diametrically opposed. I’ll be happy to buy Charles Clover a drink if I see him at the Game Fair towards the end of July, but I wouldn’t like to think we’ll always agree otherwise I might have to keep putting coins into Rupert Murdoch’s pockets.
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Yes, an excellent piece – maybe Charles could find the time to update himself on forestry where he still belongs to the 30 years ago brigade !
Looking at this & your last blog and its comments:
One thing that struck me forcibly is where is the cheap food in all this ? Since price support was replaced by income support (actually a good thing) even EU farmers sell into the world market – so we pay exactly the same for wheat as anyone else, except we pay an additional tax which mainly goes to income support.
The other thing is about proportions – in the mid 1980s when i was involved in getting RSPB into agriculture policy I (naively) thought we’d turn the tide in the 90s. In our arable areas well over 90% of the land was already very intensive – what I hadn’t reckoned on was how the last few % would be squeezed and then squeezed again – the huge %age drops we’ve seenn in birds over that time aren’t due to the bulk of land changing, its only the tiny fringe that was left and each %age point has aquite disproportionate impact. The prblem is the squeeze works bot ways – if prices go down you have to intensify to clear a profit, if they go up the demand is there and its the farmer’s duty to meet it – classic NFU logic.
No, it certainly isn’t all the farmer’s fault but every NFU member shares responsibility for the criticism that NFU’s stance justifiably lands on farming. It is just a great pity that the approach we’ve taken over the past 20 years has on top of everything else left most farmers poorer, not richer.
Rod – I was going to make one of these points in a future blog – but you’ve made it well here. If world markets determine food prices then how does income support for UK farmers reduce the prices we pay for food? We haven’t seen a rush of farmers, or ex-farmers even, to explain how income support delivers cheap food. They are welcome to come onto this blog to set out the case.
I agree that income support is probably a good thing – it’s just very badly done under the current system.
Mark – when I said income support was a good thing I was referring to its introduction to replace price support. That most income support goes to those who least need it is not a good thing.
Roderick
Agree completely
The issue of Pillar 1&2 brings out the worst in both the farmers who receive support and all of us who pay. It is a very easy target for all either in criticism or defence. Statements made often play on the fears of broadly under informed groups, who are interested in one part of the whole – eg farmland wildlife or food provenance, animal welfare, harmful production methods and the rest?
If one looks back over the last 25 years, very few farmers have become rich from growing food or industrial crops; though they may have become richer from other land related activity. Some have barely made a living and today the beef industry hangs by a thread. Without support many would have gone to wall and their land would have been aggregated into ever larger holdings and possibly a worse outcome. The eloquent critics suggest ‘means testing’ – fine, but many large owners are keeping tenants farming and farm encouraging wildlife. The reality for the majority is that if one is not highly efficient with less labour, big machines and using today’s technology, survival is near impossible. However, rightly it would be said ‘and still farmland wildlife declines’. I suggest the issue is an the ‘attitude of mind’; we need to change the perception that it is ‘either or’? I also suggest that to blog or report in a style, which demands defence, will hinder a solution. It has been clearly demonstrated at Loddington and Grange Farm that the ’both’ is possible – let us encourage mechanisms that entice a change of mindset?
Hugh – welcome! Interesting points.
I have no idea whether you are an NFU member as well as, I am sure, a CLA member, but I hope that if you are you make these points at NFU meetings too.
I do think that the RSPB’s Grange Farm project and the GWCT’s Loddington project are both successful models of wildlife delivery and I look forward to the comparison of how both projects have delivered biodiversity gains at some stage in the future.
The Pillar 1 and 2 situation is indeed an easy target for criticism – I haven’t yet seen anyone make much of a fist of defending the status quo. Reform is needed to deliver fairer and more efficient income support to deserving farmers and better to promote wildlife-friendly farming.