Agriculture and food production should be central to young people's education, NFU president tells Great Yorkshire Show

Speaking on the first day of the Great Yorkshire Show, Ms Batters argued that an education system which gives more value to food production could be beneficial for both the environment and food security, and urged the government to push for this in schools.

Ms Batters said: “If our children learned to value our food and where food comes from, it would start an education that cares about both the environment and nature. It would also end the horrors of food waste, because the amount of food we are wasting is the biggest challenge to climate change.

“At the NFU, we’re getting a huge pull from teachers saying their kids really want to know how our food is produced, and we’ve been trying for a long time to link agriculture to STEM learning.

“We need Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) ministers battering the Department for Education’s door down and saying that this is in the national interest.”

Mark Spencer, minister of state at DEFRA, who joined Ms Batters on a panel at the Great Yorkshire Show, said he was open to a conversation with the Department of Education on the subject.

He said: “I think we can open those conversations and talk about what we need to do, but that will require other people to weigh in and give us a bit of back up.

“It's also not just down to The Government, we all have a responsibility. I would say to people: ‘Go and engage with your Women's Institutes, your rotary clubs, your brownies, get out there and tell them what you’re doing on the farms and how you’re producing food.’”

Ms Batters’s comments were also echoed by chair of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, Sir Robert Goodwill, who said he believes there is a “brain drain” in the industry.

He said: “One of my worries is that the real talent in the industry is being lost. I think we need to think about how we can attract the brightest and the best, because there is a big brain drain at the moment.

“There are opportunities in the industry, but it's maybe not obvious to a lot of people how to get into them.”

Mr Spencer said: “If ever there was a moment in history where we need the brightest and the best people coming into our sector, this is that moment.

“I think not only the government, but the whole of us as a sector have got to do better at explaining to the next generation why it's a good sector to get involved with.

“If you are a very bright engineer, there is a role for you in food production, if you’re a very bright computer person, there will be plenty of options there.

“Wrestling with the fight of making sure we’ve got enough food to feed the world and dealing with the climate change challenge at the same time is a huge opportunity for people to get stuck into.”

Ms Batters also argued that food security needs to be given equal consideration with the environmental, noting the issue of farmers having been forced to leave the land they were leasing in order for solar plants to be put in place.

She said: “We’ve got to have a real and serious change in the culture of our food system, and we’ve got to value it a lot more than we do.

“Ultimately, we only have a finite amount of land, and we are going to have to think really carefully and really strategically about where we are going to produce our energy.”

Mr Spencer Noted that he did not feel a “top down” approach which bans all solar on farmland was the right approach.

“I accept the challenge that large scale solar is taking prime agricultural land, and that can't be good for our long term food security,” he added.

“I think food production needs to be the core purpose of agriculture in the UK. We want to help support farmers to produce food.”

The importance of getting great British produce from farms to plates in the hospitality sector was also stressed by Ms Batters at a panel elsewhere on the show’s first day.

Ms Batters was joined on a panel by York and North Yorkshire Chamber of Commerce Hospitality Forum Chair Philip Bolson, who said the forum is looking for “pockets of excellence” where local farms and hospitality businesses can work closely together.

The NFU and the York and North Yorkshire Chamber of Commerce Hospitality Forum are working to formally bring stakeholders together to explore how stronger supply chain links can be forged in the “out of home” food market. If successful, this model could be rolled out regionally across the country to better connect farm businesses with local pubs, restaurants and other food outlets.