As ever the farming and countryside organisations were strongly represented at the Conservative Party Conference and the various meetings and debates they held were inevitably both well attended and lively.
The only thing that flowed faster than the centenary beer at the NFU fringe meeting were the questions.
Having spent the vast majority of my life involved in agriculture, and with two sons in the industry, I understand the challenges farmers are facing.
The Conservatives recognise British farming’s crucial importance to our food security and to the vibrancy of our natural environment and rural communities. We want to help farmers raise production as we look to a future in which very rapidly there will be billions more mouths to feed. But as pressures on our natural resources grow we do not believe in production at any cost.
There can be no return to the days of the past, when Government encouraged intensive farming practices and the clearance of hedgerows and woodland. As I said in Manchester, the environment and food production is not an ‘either/or’. We need both. It is clean water, healthy soils and thriving biodiversity upon which our food security ultimately depends, and it is the job of Government to ensure that farmers are provided with the right kind of incentives to do what they do best: produce high quality food in harmony with the environment.
( 8 comments ) Tags: farming, NFU
Comment by Julia on October 14, 2009 at 11:38 am
Good morning, and what do you think of EU’s Agricultural Policy?
Comment by Gillian Evans on October 14, 2009 at 11:52 am
At last some common sense is being talked about here. I know from experience the damage done by “experts” having the ear of the government of the day, when in truth they have no practical experience of farming.
We rely far too much on imported foods – even some of our basic and my fear is that we will wake up one day and find we have no food to put on our table.
I will add my support to our farmers (and not large agri-businesses) getting all the support and help they need to get them back into food production. Why not encourage them to diversify back into food production!
Comment by Disorganised1 on October 14, 2009 at 12:02 pm
And a man in Westminster who understands farms and farming, not a stream of vegetarian CAP apologists.
Someone who recognises the diversity of types of farms we have in Britain.
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Comment by Alasdair on October 18, 2009 at 1:00 am
Make it easier for britain’s unemployed to undertake the temporary agricultural work undertaken by several thousands of Eastern Europeans in such work as fruit picking etc. I have been unemployed for periods. Allow us to be paid in this type of work and yet retain whatever benefits we receive. The type of work is usually short term. This would allow the unemployed to augment their ‘incomes’ . Rates of pay in agriculture are generally quite low. Benefits struggle to meet the needs of the longer term unemployed. Wages would be spent within this country. At the moment the Poles and others remit a large proportion of their earnings back home, to the detriment of the balance of payments.
This is a time of short term employment and casual labour. The Job Centres should
make it much easier for the jobless to find
this peripheral employment. Employmentshould be made much more ‘easy come, easy go’. At the moment the systems inflexibilty acts as a discouragement,
Comment by Arnold Whittle on December 3, 2009 at 5:00 pm
Hi James, this area is of vital the farming industry has to be maintian to a very high degree, we need more farmers and more production of food yields at home, and stop imports from abroad, the population growth in this country is constantly growing who is going to feed this ever growing population. We need ivestment in agriculture and fisheries, and stop putting regulations on food producers, cut the paper work and give these vital people room to work, I was talking to a fisherman the other week on the boarder of Scotland and he was terrified about the price of fuel for his boat, he said if it went up again he would have to sell his boat.
Comment by Maurice Weightman on April 6, 2010 at 5:07 pm
Put food first it will all be needed. We here a lot about discrimation. Please explain why the English Farmer is so discriminadted against the Scots and Welsh as Regards Single farm payments. We are all part of the United Kingdom after all? By the way ,good luck to you in Scotland and Wales and Nothern Ireland. You have politicians who look after you whilst here we are treated as almost unwantedS570 vicinty