PRODUCING MORE and impacting less has been the ambition we’ve been championing for our industry since the NFU AGM in February 2009.
And, at the risk of sounding like a broken record, it’s still the clarion call as we head into 2011.
We don’t need to look back to the spikes of 2007/08 to tell us that food production is under pressure; the events of the past year have confirmed just how exposed producers are to the combined effects of climate change, resource pressures and rising demand.
So it is really encouraging when this message starts to take hold.
At a recent Chatham House conference on food security, Secretary of State Caroline Spelman talked about the need for ‘sustainable intensification’, picking up the phrase used by the Royal Society in its 2009 Grand Challenge paper.
In Brussels too, I’ve been hearing plenty of references on the same subject.
As well as reversing the trend of becoming ever-more dependent on imported food, there are a number of challenges that we will face up to in 2011.
I have to start with TB. I hope that the consultation will deliver the right outcomes as we start the process of eradicating this hugely damaging disease. Thanks to all of you who took the time to respond to the consultation – I trust the views of farmers on the ground will help ministers with their decisions.
Secondly, we have to get a resolution to the madness in the current milk market.
I covered this in detail last month, but a sector that has the potential to be world-beating is losing confidence that it will ever see fair returns, and I keep hearing of too many young commercial dairy farmers calling it a day.
Livestock producers are also experiencing the same pressures amid escalating feed costs. Intensive producers are feeling this squeeze the most, but reports show that beef prices are also falling short by some margin from returning a profit.
If the market is going to work fairly, not only do we need government to act now and create a Groceries Code Adjudicator, but we need the role to have a strong arm, allowing organisations such as the
NFU to finger bad practice and issue proper fines for breaches – not just naming and shaming.
With regards to helping farmers increase production, there are some potentially serious risks in the coalition’s wider agenda.
The localism bill mustn’t prevent farmers obtaining planning for new facilities or renewable schemes.
The clamping down on immigration mustn’t prevent our growers having access to vital seasonal labour.
And the tax simplification initiative needs to take into account that most farm business are partnerships, which will lose out massively if all breaks are channelled through lower corporation tax at the expense of other reliefs.
I want 2011 to be a year when we start to build for the future, putting in place those vital building blocks that will see us producing more, not less, in the years to come. And on the vital issue of farming impacting less (without heavy-handed government regulation), please do get involved in the Campaign for the Farmed Environment.
Arable farmers facing much improved prices are bound to be tempted to crop every acre, but stop and think – we can afford to make smart investments in the environment and show the new government exactly how we intend to meet the challenge of producing more and impacting less. Have a prosperous and safe 2011.
