Week commencing Jan 10 2022
The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) published its damning report on the government’s post-Brexit farm payments and received wide-ranging national media pick up.
The Financial Times, Sunday Express and Observer all discussed the report and featured quotes from NFU Vice President Tom Bradshaw, where he stated that this should “serve as a wake-up call to the government”.
Tom was also interviewed on Sky News as well as speaking to presenter John Stratford on LBC News (listen from 46") about the PAC report and future trade deals.
Week commencing Jan 3 2022
At the start of this year’s Oxford Farming Conference, Defra Secretary of State George Eustice set out the latest government thinking on Environmental Land Management, unveiling further details on Local Nature Recovery and Land Restoration schemes.
The press team was busy dealing with a number of enquiries from national, international and trade media and NFU officeholders and members have been appearing on TV, radio and quoted in print.
NFU President Minette Batters was interviewed on the BBC News Channel and Channel 5 News, as well as on Radio 4’s World at One (from 19:55) where she gave her thoughts on what is needed to make new Environmental Land Management schemes a success.
Vice President Tom Bradshaw has also been conducting a number of media interviews including Farming Today, listen again BBC Sounds, BBC News (from 13:40), and Times Radio (from 1:34:50).
Tom was also a guest on the Sky News Daily Climate Show (from 2:20) where he spoke to presenter Anna Jones.
Channel 4 News has also been covering the announcements and chief news correspondent Alex Thompson based himself at NFU member and regional uplands rep Ross Wilson’s farm in Northumberland. Watch again Channel 4 News (from 33:10). Ross gave his reaction to the latest ELM plans and said there’s a need to grow high quality British food in order to prevent offshoring our carbon elsewhere.
There has also been comprehensive coverage in print with many of the national newspapers covering the ELM announcements including the Financial Times, Daily Mail, Yahoo, The Independent newspaper and New Statesman featuring quotes from Tom Bradshaw who said there was a “lack of detail” on the plans.
Tom has also been quoted in both Farmers Weekly and Farmers Guardian.