We can't take our food supply for granted

A "SEA-CHANGE" in Government attitudes towards farming is needed in the face of increasingly insecure food supplies and the impact of climate change, the National Farmers' Union said yesterday.

In a new year message on the eve of the union's centenary year, NFU president Peter Kendall called on the Government to acknowledge the industry's importance to the economy and environment.

On the back of a year in which UK livestock farmers have been hit by high feed prices and a series of disease outbreaks including foot and mouth, bluetongue and bird flu, he said "confidence was low" in some sectors.

He said action was needed to boost neglected scientific research to protect the industry – such as development of a bluetongue vaccine – and warned the NFU would be working to "resist a whole raft of regulatory threats".

He also said science would be needed to step up production at the same time as providing a wildlife-rich countryside, as the option of taking large areas out of production to boost biodiversity was "fast disappearing" in the face of food demands.

Climate change remained a key issue for farmers, he said, not just in terms of floods and droughts, but also in cutting emissions and developing renewable fuels.