York and North Yorkshire Mayor: 'I can only see Brexit as a negative impact on farming'
A decade on from the Brexit referendum, York and North Yorkshire mayor David Skaith says he "can only see it as a negative", particularly for the area's crucial food and farming sectors, after a poll at the inaugural Yorkshire Farmers' Conference found an overwhelming majority of producers believed leaving the EU had been damaging.
The Labour mayor responsible for directing investment and developing economic strategies for the area comprising more than 7,000 farms over 650,000 hectares, said while life outside the trading bloc had become more difficult for many businesses, it had hit the area’s food and agricultural sectors particularly hard.
Mr Skaith, who was attending the Yorkshire Agricultural Society event in Harrogate, said while improving trade links with the EU would go some way to revitalising the industry, the loss of payments for farmers had been devastating for many of the region’s agricultural enterprises.
He said: “We've just had a conversation on the payments with the National Farmers Union, Country Land and Business Association and others about how those payments were absolutely fundamental to those businesses to survive and since the loss of that it has been incredibly challenging.”
His comments come six months after the publication of a Farming Study, which into challenges being faced by farms, concluded more than half of all farms in York and North Yorkshire were not making a sustainable profit and Brexit had been among factors to have taken a toll on the industry. The study found farmers believed the most helpful support would be guidance on policy and regulations, followed by grants for new equipment.
Speaking after a debate at the conference on whether Brexit had been positive for agriculture, Mr Skaith said it had become clear farmers sometimes needed a helping hand. He said: "I still firmly believe that was the wrong choice, but you understand people's democratic right to vote that way, but I can only see it as a negative, particularly for the food and farming sector.
"Those EU payments shored up so many of our farmers, particularly in our patch. We have got 7,000 farmers in our region that were heavily reliant on those. Since that's been lost, and that seamless way to import and export as well, has been really damaging and it's going to take some time to combat that. It's one of the areas that was identified in the Farming Study.
“It's not just the farmers. I know as a small business owner for over ten years that you want to know what the next two, five or ten years are going to look like.
"Farmers need to know because they're not just putting crops in the ground for next week, they're looking at next year or five years' time. They need that stability, but they also need to know what they're being asked to do. Are they looking at a stronger role with the environment, re-wilding or looking after waterways? I believe they should be and they will be. They are a key part of that.”