Region’s farmers call for food policy review as £37.5m losses loom

Information published today by the National Farmers’ Union (NFU) shows that the region’s arable, vegetable and fruit farmers are facing collective losses of £37.5m for 2011.

The losses come after a difficult year which saw heavy snow over winter, the driest spring for decades and the E.coli scare in Germany.

The severe financial pressures will be used today by the NFU at the start of the Great Yorkshire Show to both highlight the importance of domestic food production and press the government on the urgent need for a food strategy.

The union’s research shows that three of the region’s leading fruit and vegetable growers are reporting losses of more than £1.2m and salad growers are not far behind with reported losses of close to £1m.

However, it is the cereals sector where damages appear worst. With harvesting due to begin in a few weeks, yields already look set to be significantly affected.

Conservative estimates predict a reduction in yields of 10 per cent due to the dry weather which would equate to a £35m hit for the region’s arable farmers.

Guy Poskitt, the NFU’s county chairman for the West Riding and a renowned vegetable grower, said the time had come for the issue to be taken seriously by Government.

“We have a situation nationally where we are increasingly less able to feed ourselves,” he said.

“In the fruit and vegetable sector alone our self-sufficiency in indigenous vegetables has fallen from 73 to 60 per cent over the last 10 years, yet Defra’s own fruit and vegetables task force has highlighted the importance of domestic production on the grounds of cost, availability and quality.

“There is much talk of the rising national and global population and the increasing pressure to produce more in a sustainable way.

“We welcome the recent government initiatives on red tape and their move to prioritise food production, but we need a co-ordinated plan to ensure that supermarket prices are kept reasonable and that farmers can deliver in the long term.”

Mr Poskitt said that Yorkshire was ideally placed to deliver more food for the country.

He said: “Yorkshire is widely recognised as the food and drink capital of the UK, with more than 1,000 local food and drink manufacturing companies employing 18 per cent of the local workforce.

“From a farming perspective, agricultural land accounts for 70 per cent of the region and collectively Yorkshire producers generate an economic output of more than £1.7bn a year.

“The capacity, willingness and expertise are here, yet we are seeing producers bearing the brunt of unpredictable weather events and volatile commodity markets while occupying an often vulnerable position in the supply chain.

“And against this background we are seeing the quantity of food imports continue to rise and the issue of food inflation is an obvious concern for shoppers.”