Chris Berry: Farmers still pay price of our cheap imports

National Farmers’ Union president Peter Kendall has urged supermarkets to stop scouring the world for the cheapest products and to support the high quality, traceable food produced in Great Britain. He has spoken of farmers being furious about the horsemeat scandal and called for shorter supply chains and better labelling of British-produced food.

This has been the first time in a long while that farmers’ voices have been heard on a national level and they are determined to make the most of it. Public support is well and truly behind them, with many continuing to rail against the supermarkets, judging by a survey conducted in the past few weeks that showed 78 per cent of those questioned believed they should stock more British food.

News such as this is encouraging for a farming industry that has felt its words have been falling on increasingly deaf ears. Ever since the foot-and-mouth outbreak in 2001, when farming made front-page news for months with funeral pyres and mass culling, agriculture has quietly gone about its business, keeping its head down and working hard.

A great deal of rebuilding of farmer confidence has been brought about in the past decade, but optimism that returned in some sectors is not shared by all. It is why “togetherness” was the watchword at this year’s NFU conference.

The newly installed NFU York County East chairman Jill Hairsine believes that farming is now regarded as a minority industry by the Government and because of this the NFU has an even more vital role to play.

“Although the Government say they want food security they don’t always listen,” she said. “Some sectors of farming have performed reasonably well over the past two years but there are now worrying signs for many of us once again.

“That’s why we as an industry should stick together. It is debatable that anything would be done at all if we did not have an NFU.”

So where is farming at as we come into Spring 2013? Dairy farming is still struggling to achieve sustainability and the UK continues to haemorrhage dairy farmers year on year; sheep prices are £30 down on this time last year; pig prices are tumbling once again and pork from abroad is still prominent in many supermarkets.

The prices of inputs such as feed and fuel are also putting increased pressure on all livestock men, even those who are performing better than others such as the beef sector.

Cereal prices have maintained reasonable levels but their input costs of fertiliser and fuel have diluted the profit levels they could have anticipated.

Last year saw heavy rainfall throughout the summer, which caused floods and a poor harvest. Its effect is still lingering on this year with in many cases land still to be drilled that should have been undertaken in the autumn. Yields on wheat and barley were also lower.

Bovine TB remains a serious problem in cattle, but this year it already looks as though the Schmallenberg virus has overtaken this in terms of the worry factor for farmers. While the threat is of no consequence to consumers, the deformities it is causing in newborn lambs and calves, plus infertility in dairy cows, will also further reduce profitability of livestock.

The Government and supermarkets are two of the key players that farming has to work with, in spite of the fact that they don’t trust either to help them very much.

A reform of the Common Agricultural Policy is currently being discussed and farmers are particularly concerned over the effect any changes will have. Many could not survive at all without their Single Farm Payment.

Supermarkets have long been labelled the villains of the farming world, having often sacrificed home produced food for cheap imports on their shelves. During the past decade they have made a shift back towards purchasing locally, but it hasn’t been a wholesale movement and farmers are not the kind of people to be hoodwinked by what they see as the supermarkets simply being media savvy.

At a time when fuel prices are going through yet another roof, their bewilderment over how it can be less expensive for supermarkets to stock lamb that has been running around a field in New Zealand, transported to an abattoir, cut up and then flown over here, rather than purchasing home-produced lamb, is understandable.

In conclusion, it comes down to this: cheap imports and an ever-bigger drive for even cheaper imports of any kind versus home-produced quality.

What would you choose?