You can listen to the one-sided discussion between the NFU and Owen Paterson on the Today programme this morning here (at 0650). We heard from the industry and from a known strong supporter of the agri-industry model. What was needed was a different perspective or some more pointed questions from John Humphrys.
‘Why should the public put any money into agriculture now we are leaving the EU?’ should have been the starting point of the discussion. The answer might well have been ‘to keep food prices down’ – in which case an explanation of how that works would be amusing, or ‘because of the public goods it delivers’ – in which case a reference to the State of Nature report would have been in order.
Instead we had to hear Opatz slagging off Magpies! Post-fact or post-rational?
Meanwhile, in the news, the Environmental Audit Committee published a challenging, hard-hitting report on the environment post-Brexit which Today mentioned but did not discuss – they talked about fog instead. Maybe the World at One (good programme, particularly when Martha Kearney is presenting), or PM (excellent programme, quirky but with very low environmental content) or the World Tonight (pretty good programme but very low environmental content) will pick up this subject?
And at the Oxford Farming Conference:
- it seems as though Andrea Leadsom has promised a Green Paper on Brexit ‘this year’ – as one farmer pointed out on Twitter, he’ll be planting crops in 9 months time which will be harvested when we have left the EU
- George Eustice hints that grouse shooting isn’t farming and could lose its subsidies – WOWWW!
- Liam Fox will be in charge of trade negotiations over agriculture so British farming and the British environment may find common cause in the grave danger in which they will both find themselves (#Ididntvoteforit)
- red tape will be scrapped to help farmers get on with it – though which ‘red tape’ and which ‘it’ are not clear!
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Absolutely right, why should the public put money into farming ? And, as you say, trying to justify on cheap food would be a disaster – the answer is simply to import it.
But a bit of care is needed here because in terms of who cares about all this, all the land uses are in it together – farming, water, conservation forestry and in the crude Brexit / Trump /Farage version of politics no one is going to be there to say ‘hang on a sec, all the money for wildlife conservation just went as you flushed out the farming subsidies.’
Well there you go, quite right why should the rest of you subsidise us farmers, after all we would far rather receive a fair market price, farm more efficiently and not have to bother with our conscience seeing all that cash which be used elsewhere.
So just need a plan then. Step one find some farmers who are prepared to carry on in business producing something that they don’t know what it will yield, because you can’t control the production process due to minor issues like climate and so on, who are prepared to sell it for a price which say for wheat is a fraction of the index linked value from 30 years ago pre subsidies (1970 price £45/ton index linked £400/tn market today £126/Tn)
Step two. Find a government that’s prepared to take the risk of a subsidy free farming sector when actually they know that currency fluctuations on say the 40% of food we import would be small potatoes (sorry couldn’t resist the bad pun) given the effect that price rationing would have on the domestic market in that situation (please refer to step 1)
Step 3……?
Oh and while I’m thinking about it, and I stress that I’m no fan of subsided farming; it’s quite interesting to work out the value related benefit per unit of production from the EU. Take wheat for instance; the average UK yield is circa 8tns per ha and the BPS is £220 ish or £27 per ton. Today’s price is £126 so per ton plus subsidies it’s just over £150 per ton. Index linked pre subsidies it should be £400. Okay given the advances in yields and technical stuff that £400 isn’t a fair reflection of where the market should be but it’s not far off. You can apply the same argument to milk, sheep whatever you like but the argument holds good across all commodities. Just an observation as actually given the economy dynamics of today’s economy it’s a massive oversimplification but it dose illustrate how far food production,s share of the overall economic pie has fallen.
julian – very interesting, thank you. What should we all do now then?
Just maybe encourage all your like minded souls to thank the lord you live in a period of time and country when it seems everyone well fed and spends a smaller proportion of earned income on essential food produced in this country than ever before.
Many times in history lots of people in UK were close to starvation and it is still the case in many countries today.
Talk of land value tax and polluter pays smell of jealousy,why not a special tax for loads of other things and tracing a polluter is in most cases almost impossible.
I guess the fuss about pollution is about fertiliser getting into water,well tracing which bit was from who would be shall we say impossible.
My guess is the fuss about farmers is a you and us spiteful jibe from lets be polite and say a few Labour voters.
Mark, for me I favour getting rid of them, personally I’m fed up of producing at a loss whilest on life support….it’s not a good business model. The market would price ration itself as it has done post Brexit. Prices have gone up by 30% against a currency drop of 15% as exports have starved the domestic market. It would be a rough ride as demand is constant while supply fluctuates.
For the UK economy I don’t think however it would be a very bright move, we are already seeing currency effects being magnified by price rationing and this would only get worse especially since UK imports and exports would be subject possibly to increased tariffs post Brexit.
Given that a sensible solution might be to split any future support into three sectors.
The first could be based on the US federal crop insurance model where crop or livestock production could benefit from subsidised insurance premiums. Agriculture is recognised as a vital sector with a volatile trading environment and I think politically this would run as a justifiable support.
Second we could build on the LEADER grant system already in place which has various objectives from capital grants for water protection, environmental capital works and support for micro rural business involved in the rural economy. Again this could be argued as having a value to society as a whole.
Thirdly over to you guys, get what you can grap for environmental schemes. Good luck with that one ! Not brilliant track record to date I’d suggest?
Julian – that’s very interesting thank you. I’ll have to think about that for a bit.
NFU and Owen Paterson, that’ll produce a nice balanced discussion, not.
Julian’s points are actually very interesting – the sort of thing that is rarely if ever mentioned. The real value of most primary production has gone down and down – as Julian says, the farmer’s £ has got smaller and smaller, and at the moment the treadmill of intensification is failing to keep up. Also, if you believe in globalisation, UK – and most EU & north American agriculture can’t compete – things grow faster if its warmer. Which is why free trade is a one way street – yes, for southern nations paying for industrial goods, no for free trade in their agricultural products – our subsidies (EU, USA) are in effect huge tarrif barriers.
And at the heart of what Julian is saying is one big truth – whatever farmers and the farming religion say, ultimately, and logically, what concerns most farmers is making a reasonable living – and were that to be by farming for water or for wildlife, most would swap that for current uncertainty.
Dennis, I remember my parents and their friends who were growing up in the 1930,s having a very different attitude to agriculture, certainly having gone through the 40’s and 50’s but having seen the personal cost which those years wrought on my family I don’t think they could be described as halcyon. True enough the percentage of income spent on food in Europe and the US is by far and away the lowest proportion globally. The FSU and Russia lag miles behind, followed by S.America and Asia then obviously the remaining emerging markets. Whether there is a link between subsidies and the proportion of total income spent on food I don’t know but it’s certainly true that those countries with the longest subsidy supported food sector are the best performers.
Anyhow if this blog is a reflection of the mood of the country I guess the best option for farmers is too keep quiet and hope the government keeps paying out; as far as I can see there are only three of us on here interested !!!
Today had another go at farming policy this morning at 8.35am. “British farmers grow less than they could, they cannot improve their productivity in the way American farmers can thanks to the EU’s “insane hostility to innovation”. That was the claim made by the former Environment Secretary Owen Paterson on the programme yesterday, saying that he had recently visited the headquarters of chemical company BASF and heard their concerns. We speak to Paul Leonard, the head of innovation technology policy for BASF, and Molly Scott Cato, a Green MEP who sits on the Agricultural Committee at the EU parliament.”
Paul Leonard was quite good and made a decent contribution even if I didn’t agree with all of it. Quite a lot was media piffle for “selling more pesticides”. Molly Scott challenged this well but wasn’t given much time to develop her case. Yes, we have to produce more food, but come on BBC, challenge the methodology. An excellent programme “The New World” on World demographics followed at 9.00am. The environment from another angle.
This consumer would happily pay a lot more for food to ensure that our farmers get a deserved return for their labours and the risks they take. I’d happily sacrifice money for luxuries to see a lot more wildlife on local country walks.
But not everyone has that option or inclination. Taking money away from farming subsidies and the resultant rising cost of food / reliance on imports would require a considerable rebalancing of the economy: the welfare bill would have to go up for those who are unemployed, who are unable to work or are working but on low income. Expenditure in the middle class would be reduced on non-food items and this would have an effect on many businesses and government tax revenues.
I can’t see the government being able to grapple with this scale of change in the medium term so suspect they will keep paying out, but not to the same extent. Although I voted remain I try to be optimistic that this is an opportunity for UK farming subsidies : self-determination and ability to vary the model more quickly. George Monbiot’s view is interesting (http://www.monbiot.com/2017/01/04/the-hills-are-dead/): perhaps the income for landowners in the hills will have to change more so than it does for landowners in the lowlands?
Educating the public to attach more value to everything farmers give us – food, landscapes, environmental management and wildlife – is key to getting public support on a new subsidy model.
Neil – thank you and you’ll be interested in the second blog on this subject coming out at 1245.
Just explain to us all how reducing income support to the Duke of Westminster through farming subsidies will make food more expensive?