Government must deliver increased UK self-sufficiency in food, increased farm business profitability and increased fairness and security in supply chains in the first five years of its 25-year food and farming plan for it to be a success, the NFU President said today.
NFU President Meurig Raymond, speaking at a Westminster Food & Nutrition Forum event, said that it was vital to have set goals for the respected government in charge of the 25-year food and farming plan and added: “Government and ministers come and go. Farm businesses do not.”
As Mr Raymond urged Defra to publish the plan as soon as possible, event delegates were informed that the 25-year food and farming plan would be released after the EU Referendum.
Mr Raymond said in his speech to the Forum: “Declining productivity equates to declining competitiveness and for consumers, more worryingly, a slide in the nation’s self-sufficiency. For most farm businesses the threat is more fundamental still.
“Profit is seeping out of the sector and investment with it, not helped by the double whammy of increasing labour costs and intense pressure on retail prices.
“There is no hiding that farmers face severe economic challenges today even if the future looks brighter. The question farmers are asking me is whether this plan will deliver for UK farming, reversing years of political neglect and economic investment, to become not just profitable but more productive and competitive in the market place.
“Defra Secretary of State Liz Truss is a strong advocate of the UK’s world-leading agri-research, so I expect Defra’s plan will set out how this knowledge can benefit UK producers and consumers – and not be exported.
“The 25-year plan must show how EU regulation and UK agencies will change to allow farms access to developments like novel breeding techniques, world-class plant protection products and other new technologies as they come on board.
“The plan also needs to set out how to achieve a fairer, more transparent supply chain. This should mean a bigger role for the Grocery Code Adjudicator and recognise the industry’s voluntary codes, urge the whole supply chain to follow these terms and not treat them as fair weather agreements.
“This plan to ensure British agriculture thrives needs to be bold, it needs to address fundamental issues of productivity and competitiveness and it needs to see a culture change about how this country values food and farming.”
