NFU president backs call for ‘super farms’

National Farmers’ Union president Peter Kendall courted controversy this week when he voiced his support for more ‘super farms’ in England.

Mr Kendall said in an interview with The Guardian newspaper that the country needed more and bigger super farms in order to keep food prices from rising too high.

There have been a number of proposals in the last two years for large scale farms in England, including plans for an 8,000 cattle dairy farm at Nocton in Lincolnshire, all of which were heavily criticised by campaigners who say such farms will see sick and injured animals go unnoticed and cause more damage to the environment.

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But Mr Kendall said that farmland in Britain was becoming increasingly scarce and the government should permit some farms to keep several thousand animals and be part of a trial aimed at helping Britain feed its population as food demand rises around the world.

The Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology (Post) recently published an independent report that found that much larger farms than those in Britain could be “both good and bad” for animal welfare and the environment.

Mr Kendall told The Guardian: “The challenge of feeding everybody with the constraints of climate change and weather shocks is so great we’ll need a complete rethink.

“I want to make sure we’re not importing food that’s produced to lower welfare standards and therefore driving our farmers out.”

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Large scale farming has never gained a foothold in the UK, with American farms with 10,000 pigs being relatively commonplace. One farm in Saudi Arabia has a dairy herd of 37,000.

However, Mr Kendall’s remarks have not passed without criticism.

Emma Hockridge, head of policy at organic group the Soil Association, told the Yorkshire Post: “In his support for super farms, Peter Kendall neglects to mention the problems which could be caused by such developments.

“Apart from the obvious animal welfare problems caused by animals not having access to the open air, the human health impact of the proposed 2,500 sow (20,000 pig) Foston mega pig farm Peter Kendall supports is potentially huge.

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“Included in the review of evidence we submitted to the still to be decided planning application for the development were concerns about the use of antibiotics and antibiotic resistance.

“Large scale industrial livestock units could change the British landscape as we know it forever – resulting in concrete and factory style developments rather than animals grazing in fields. Grass-based livestock production also has benefits for biodiversity and carbon sequestra-tion.”

The Compassion in World Farming charity also expressed concerns, with its director of public affairs Joyce D’Silva saying in a statement: “We see each animal as an individual sentient being.

“The market would put animals in thousands: it’s hard to treat them as individuals.”