NFU President Peter Kendall wrote a Talking Point article for Farmers Weekly last week (3 September), focussing on the spending cuts which are looming for all sectors of government.
The article is below but this is also something Peter talked about in his latest column for British Farmer and Grower magazine here.
Farmers’ Weekly readers may have noticed a big campaign by environmental groups to protect countryside stewardship from the current round of public spending cuts, which are now being hatched in government, to be announced in October. The campaign includes ads in newspapers, billboards in the constituency of key ministers and mass emailing of the Chancellor. Why isn’t the NFU doing the same?
Well, it’s much easier to be a single issue group. For them, protecting environmental spending is their be all and end all. For the NFU, whose purpose is to champion a competitive and productive farming industry as well as our environmental stewardship, life is a lot more complicated. One member’s meat could be another member’s poison.
We know that Defra has had to look hard at how it would manage cuts ranging between 25 and 40 per cent and that ministers have put in their own “bid” to Treasury of proposed departmental cuts. We don’t know what’s in that proposal or how big it is - although most commentators think it will be at least 30 per cent. Nor do we know if in the end the Treasury will insist on more. In this context the NFU has argued for Defra to avoid cuts where it would damage the long term competitive prospects of British farming and we have made clear the importance of research and development, so often an easy target in difficult times.
However cuts of this scale on a £3 billion budget are truly eye-watering. As much as we would like to see savings in the back office not front-line services, it is inevitable that programmes will have to be cut. And we recognise that the scale of the spending cuts required mean that no area of government can be immune.
Most of our members receive some form of environmental payments, and for some they are an important part of the business. Obviously we would ideally prefer to see no cuts here. And if we could be assured that ring-fencing agri-environment payments could be achieved without impacting on farmers’ competitive position elsewhere, we would no doubt join in the RSPB’s campaign. But at this moment no one can give us this guarantee.
Protecting this area of the Defra budget will inevitably make it more likely there will be cuts elsewhere - for example in flood defence - so vital to some of our members and to our productive capacity. And if not cuts, then charges - for example on livestock farmers for disease control. Let us not forget either that these cuts go across government so the pain might not come through the Defra budget but elsewhere - for example from other departments that are looking to balance their books. Any of these measures would offend against our core principle of not harming British farming’s competitive position.
At the same time as the Spending Review will be announced in October, Departmental Reform Plans will be finalised. We are immensely heartened that Defra’s draft plan has as its first priority to “support and develop British farming and encourage sustainable food production” and its second is to “help to enhance the environment and biodiversity”. This echoes the NFU’s own mantra of produce more, impact less; we trust the government’s spending plans will reflect those priorities.
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