Baroness Batters: The value of farming has to be recalculated - Farm Proitability Review inquiry
A complete recalculation of the value of farming to the British economy is critical to improving the profitability of farms, the author of a wide-ranging inquiry into the future of the country’s agricultural industry has concluded.
Baroness Minette Batters told the National Sheep Association Conference at the Yorkshire Agricultural Society’s Pavilions of Harrogate that she had been advised her Farm Profitability Review (FPR) report commissioned by the Government earlier this year would be published shortly and that Defra was considering her findings.
The crossbench peer, who served as president of the National Farmers Union for six years until last year and farms sheep, cattle and barley alongside pick your own, wedding and holiday cottages ventures, said the report included some 57 recommendations.
She said she had found the numerous changes in Government in recent years had had an enormous impact on the agricultural sector. Baroness Batters said: “In fairness to Rishi Sunak, if he hadn’t come to power and we had still had Liz Truss in office we would be in a much bigger mess on various different levels than we are now.”
She said the 400 responses from the industry to the inquiry “spoke volumes to the problems that we face”.
Baroness Batters said looking at the impact of the US trade deal, she had found there was no reason why British farmers should not be producing crops as part of rotation that are for energy and that farmers needed to look more towards opportunities at a local level.
She said: “We tend to focus a lot of our energy on retail, forgetting that 50 per cent of the out of home market is unchartered.”
She said she had heard alarming evidence that only one in every 15 steaks sold at British pubs and restaurants was British Aberdeen Angus.
The peer said her review would propose “sector missions”, so every agricultural sector knows what it is producing and has a plan that is tied into the national plan.
Baroness Batters said: “We are making decisions on our farms with no idea what the national plan is.”
She added she wanted to expand the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board, which represents farmers, growers and others in the supply chain, and forge “a real partnership” between Govenment and the industry.
She said she had set out on the inquiry bearing in mind the challenges created by the loss of the Sustainable Farming Incentive and the “family farm tax” by asking whether farmers were valued by the Government.
Baroness Batters said: “I was reminded of conversations I had had in Whitehall over the years of making the case. What about everything else that farming underpins? What about our rural economy.
"And time after time officials say farming could not matter less. It is 0.6 per cent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP). So this are we valued, do we matter I think sits at the heart of a lot of the problems we face."
“My first recommendations are about saying Defra and the Office for National Statistics, which calibrates value of GDP, has to recalculate our value of GDP by measuring primary production and primary and secondary processing.
"I want to see a complete recalculation of the value of agriculture in this country and then be able to build from there going forwards. So the opportunities to be growing more, creating more, making the most of entepreneurial farm businesses is absolutely at the heart of what I’m proposing. It means that Defra has to change.”