Government accused of being focused on ‘anything other than food’ in countryside

The president of the National Farmers’ Union told her organisation’s annual conference in Birmingham that the Government had “completely contradictory” policies for the agricultural sector.

These include raising the bar for environmental standards at home but pursuing trade deals which support lower standards overseas, as well as making it difficult to find workers to harvest or process domestic food, and failing to prioritise resources to open up new export markets, she said.

She raised concerns about the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, which between them produce 30 per cent of global wheat exports, and economic pressures including 200 per cent inflation in fertiliser costs.

“Yet while there is a cost of living crisis looming and an increasingly unstable world, the UK Government’s energy and ambition for our countryside seems to be almost entirely focused on anything other than domestic food production,” she said.

“Whether it’s reintroduction of species; an ambition to set 30 per cent of our land aside, or a payment system almost in opposition to food production.”

Many farmers oppose the return of species such as beavers because of their potential impact on farmland, while the Government has said it wants to protect 30 per cent of land for nature.

But wildlife groups say that target includes national parks and other existing protected areas that are not primarily safeguarded for nature, and do not deliver for wildlife.

Ms Batters warned the sustainable farming incentive, payments which the Government hopes 70 per cent of farmers will take up as an environmentally-friendly farming replacement for the EU subsidy regime, will be under-funded.

Ministers recently announced that a third of the total budget for the “environmental land management scheme” (Elms) would go to the sustainable farming incentive, while a third would go to large scale nature schemes including rewilding, and the final third to farm-level wildlife projects.

Ms Batters said: “This country needs a strategy and a clear vision for what we expect from British farming.

“Do we want and expect different things from our land than the rest of the world?

“A pretty park at home while we tuck into imported food produced in extremely intensive ways with huge environmental impact somewhere else.

“Are we turning a blind eye to the impact of global food production while we pursue a domestic vision of a chocolate box countryside?” she asked.

Ms Batters insisted that farming was central to delivering on environmental and climate policies, and criticised the “angry mob” demonising cows – who she said were promoted and supported by companies selling ultra-processed plant-based proteins.

Shadow environment secretary Jim McMahon said ministers should use the lever of the Elms scheme, which was “entirely within the Government’s control”, to help farmers facing the problems of post-Brexit trade, labour shortages and high inflation.

The Government is shifting the £2bn a year paid to farmers in England from a system of subsidies largely based on the amount of land farmed to the new Elms programme, with payments under the old scheme already being reduced.

Mr McMahon said: “They determine how much money is in the pot, they determine how that pot is then distributed, and they determine the priorities and the criteria for allocating that money.”

He pointed to surpluses in the January public sector finances, and said: “There is money in the system to say to farmers, we can give you a bit of breathing space to go through this uncertain time on cost-of-living, on Brexit, come through the pandemic, that will just give you a bit more time to settle.

“We’ll then look to reform, on a more transitional basis, Elms that helps our biodiversity and our nature. That would be a pragmatic thing to do.”

Mr McMahon also said the Government could solve the labour shortage “today” but even its most recent attempt had been “clouded with incompetence”.