Lessons from the continent

Why should we be concerned by the farmers’ demonstrations in 12 EU countries since January and what do they have to do with Britain’s meat supply chain?

EU farmers have had enough. They face spiralling costs, mounting red tape and controls (France now has a biodiversity police and 14 edge regulations!), price cuts from supermarket chains and hard-pressed consumers, competition of imports produced to lower standards, top-down environment policies spawned by bureaucrats and ideologues divorced from the realities of farming, hatred from the green, consumerist and animal welfare lobbies, which dream of new taxes, and of new legal, administrative and labelling constraints on food production.

“Food security is still not taken seriously in the UK.”

The example of phytosanitary products is telling. Why impose undue bans when imported food and feed are allowed to use them, when, all too often, no real alternative exists, and when it renders specific food unaffordable to most consumers? Of course, no farmer enjoys spraying crops but there is anger when producers must uproot fruit trees or abandon crops as uneconomical.

EU farmers are described by some media and NGOs as “productivist” and even downright poisoners. Only organic farming has merit. Its advocates refuse to acknowledge falling sales due to unaffordable prices, falling manpower on the land and unrealistic expectations of feeding the continent.

Brussels’ ‘Farm to Fork’ programme will cut EU farm output by up to 20%, farmers’ incomes (often already below the minimum wage) by 16% and increase consumer prices (large sections of the population already cannot afford quality food). These are insane policies at a time of greater food need across the world.

In short, farming is dying as older farmers retire and the agricultural population shrinks to critical levels.

The EU is not alone. The USA has lost 20 million acres of cultivated land between 2017 and 2022 as well as 142,000 farms. The US Government is concerned for its future food security.

All these woes apply to the UK and are arguably worse here. For instance, farming subsidies are suffering a double blow. They are much smaller than the £3.5 billion annual support in the past and the reduced sum must contend with less direct support. ELMS in England entails 280 measures detailed in a 101-page document including paying farmers not to farm. No wonder a large share of funding remains unclaimed.

The alarming ‘Greening plans’ in Wales would lead to a 10.8% cut in livestock numbers, a loss of 5,500 jobs and a cost to the sector of almost £200 million. I have some questions: how much ‘greener’ can the Welsh landscape be? Have officials in Cardiff ever set foot on a livestock farm and read the science - for example HCC’s report, The Welsh Way? The nightmarish prospect of on-farm CO2 recording, of a “single CO2 calculator”, of a CO2 police are presented in the consultation document. The impact assessment is purely econometric and does not envisage disinvestment and the potential downward spiral for meat and milk production.

Food security is still not taken seriously in the UK. This has long-term implications for the country and its meat processing sector with much reduced supplies and more dependence on imports, which spells economic, political and environmental nonsense.