Next farming generation a rare breed

The agriculture industry is creating a generation of experts in land and golf course management, equine studies and environmental issues rather than dairymen and stock keepers, warns the Women’s Food and Farming Union.

WFU President Gillian van der Meer speaking at the annual WFU AGM at Saddlers Hall, in the heart of the City of London, asked members, Defra and industry leaders why should the next generation work twice as hard and long for less than their peers receive for working off the land.

“Apparently diversification will solve our problems. We are told that farmers need to take control of their farm businesses and develop them. Unless that business is underpinned by a realistic price, giving a realistic profitable return, there will be no business to develop. There certainly won’t be many under 30s waiting in the wings to give a hand,” said Mrs van der Meer.

“We need to replace the current buzzword ‘sustainability’ with ‘stability’. It is stability the farming industry needs to stop the ongoing exodus and ensure its survival. Stability in farm-gate prices, stability in markets, stability in hope.”

Delegates heard that on the one hand the industry has the marketing experts telling us we have to survive in the real world with real world prices, and on the other the ‘academics’ telling us they intend to spend £20 million over the next three years researching and telling us what is wrong with the rural sector, why it is in decline and what needs to be done to regenerate it.

“I can only come up with a simple solution, not a £20 million one. Pay the farmers a fair reasonable price,” concluded Mrs van der Meer.

Mrs van der Meer’s comments were in sharp contrast to her fellow speaker, David Hunter, Director of EU and International Policy at Defra. Mr Hunter told delegates it was the responsibility of the industry, not Defra, to find the next generation of farmers, and to promote itself to the wider public.

“The objectives of the Government are to create conditions where farmers can respond to market signals, to preserve and enhance environment and amenity value of the countryside and to encourage a thriving rural community and farming way of life,” said Mr Hunter.

Mr Hunter’s summary of the Mid-Term Review raised more questions than answers, with little to cheer about. With a leaning towards historical payments Mr Hunter told delegates that any new arrangements had to start on January 1st 2005, but there was still a great deal to do.

“There are some difficult political decisions still to be made, but June’s fundamental reform was needed to enable the integration of new members into the EU. There are so many complications in our decision, for example, historical payments would impact more on the dairy industry due to the implications of the dairy premium and area payments.

“The days of trying for self-sufficiency are past. There is a strength of feeling in the general public, and farming, that intensification has gone too far and we need a natural relationship between land activity and the markets,” said Mr Hunter.

Mrs van der Meer responded by urging members to stand behind the WFU strapline ‘Linking producer and consumer’.

“We will honour the pledge to keep promoting this country’s produce to consumers, however it is termed. But we must also stand firm in our belief to make those beyond the farm-gate listen to the fact that farming will still be important in the next ten years. The industry needs to be stabilised now, before it is too late,” said Mrs van der Meer.