Farmers celebrated the past and looked to the future as NFU Suffolk marked its first 101 years in November.
Around 200 members joined County Chair Glenn Buckingham, NFU President Minette Batters, MPs, past and present staff members and other invited guests for a celebration lunch and centennial annual county meeting at Trinity Park, Ipswich. The event was held a year later than planned, after it was postponed due to Covid-19 restrictions.
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NFU County Adviser Charles Hesketh said: “We’re delighted that Minette Batters joined us for this special occasion. It was a chance to reflect on, and celebrate, everything the NFU has achieved and to look at the challenges and opportunities facing agriculture at the start of our second century.”
NFU Suffolk was founded at the end of 1920, when East and West Suffolk NFUs agreed to merge, under the chairmanship of farmer David Black.
In a speech reflecting on the centenary, former County Chair David Barker (pictured above) said the NFU’s greatest strength had always been its membership.
"To many farmers, the organisation represents their interests in the best possible way. Not all farmers are able to attend meetings, but they can carry out their work on their tractors, with livestock and in farm offices safe in the knowledge that there is a dedicated and professional organisation with the highest calibre staff fighting their corner," he said.
Minette congratulated NFU Suffolk on its centenary and said the future would be about one thing - change. She said that it was crucial for the Government to address issues around self sufficiency, which had dropped to 30% in 1947 but had increased to 80% in the 1980s. Now it was down to about 60%.
"There have been some success stories, in sectors such as eggs, but we need more enormous self sufficiency success stories going forward," she said.
It was an issue the government had to address, she added, as she highlighted issues around trade, labour, food and farming education and agriculture’s journey towards net zero by 2040.
“If we can get the government to work with us collaboratively on these issues I do think there are opportunities there for farming in the years ahead,” she said.
Glenn told the guests: "We can be positive about what we have achieved over the past 100 years. There are issues for us to face. We have to take the challenges on in a positive way."
He presented Minette with flowers and an oak sapling, grown from an acorn planted last year on the Helmingham Estate near Stowmarket.