At the NFU’s fringe panel event during the Conservative party conference, the future agriculture budget featured heavily, including Defra’s significant underspend and the attendees heard support was desperately needed on farms as serious food production challenges remained.
NFU Deputy President David Exwood joined a panel that included Patrick English, YouGov Director of Political Analytics and Steve Barclay, Shadow Defra Secretary, in a debate chaired by Alice Thomson, Times columnist and interviewer.
More than 100 farmers, industry delegates, politicians and stakeholders were at the Birmingham Rep Theatre for the meeting where David repeated calls for any agriculture budget underspend to be rolled over.
With the Autumn Budget due to be announced on 30 October the government has said they need to fill a “£22 billion black hole”.
David said: “There has been a significant underspend and that money has not gone out of the door but is desperately needed on farm as it has been such a difficult time.
“The agriculture budget is there to deliver policy and the most important one for many farmers now is SFI, and we have some real worries about its delivery.
“Farmer confidence is low, we have had terrible weather again this year – we have just had another inch of rain on my farm in Sussex. There's a real moment of peril for those who were impacted by the wet weather last autumn, they haven't received any funding from the Farming Recovery Fund and we're now running into another incredibly wet autumn that is going to threaten their profitability for next year again. This is a worrying time.”
Moment of transition
David told the audience that this was a real moment of transition and a critical moment for farms, which is why policies were needed to help address the many food production challenges being experienced.
“We should be backing British food production,” he said.
“We have the water, we have the soils, we have the technology, we have the capability and we have the market, so we must be growing our own food.
“We cannot allow at this point in history just to say we have achieved things for the environment and climate but in the process we have just offshored our farming footprint.”
He said while there was risk for all he was worried that the most vulnerable farmers, particularly tenants and those in the uplands, would be “most exposed”.
“There has been a significant underspend and that money has not gone out of the door but is desperately needed on farm.”
NFU Deputy President David Exwood
Crunching the general election numbers
David also spoke about the loss of rural champions following the general election but said it was good to see new ones appearing in the House of Commons.
“The faming vote has been up for grabs and the real urgency we need from the Conservative party, and from all parties, is for them to reach out and reconnect with rural voters and with everything going on with farming.
“We need an effective Opposition, we need effective policies and politics has to work for our rural areas and farming, and that will hopefully rebuild confidence.”
Patrick English gave an overview of the general election results, data looking at the Conservative vote across the country and indicated the work needed to be done to regain ground in rural constituencies.
The results showed that the Conservatives lost 251 seats and double the number of rural seats (88 urban or semi-urban seats, 163 rural seats). He said the loss, on a 2:1 ratio, was “striking”.
Farming voice
Trade policy, labelling, retailer power, renewable energy and the new government’s upcoming land use framework were also discussed during the question-and-answer session.
Shadow Defra Secretary Steve Barclay said he had inherited Defra budget underspends from previous years but had worked to ensure that money remained within the department.
This, he said, had allowed the Conservative party to announce grant programmes to drive on farm productivity when he attended NFU Conference back in February.
With the current underspend, he said there needed to be flexibility from the current government to say some of the money could be used in the following year rather than going back into Treasury.
He also backed the current SFI scheme, which he said was more outcome focused and would only benefit the industry when compared to the Basic Payment Scheme that had run before.
Mr Barclay also spoke about the environment and said it, alongside food production, remained “two sides of the same coin”.
“There is a sense and perception that we had spoken too much about the environmental side rather than food production,” he said.
“I think one of the key points moving forward is that there needs to be much more focus on food security.”
Delegates heard that the “the farming voice needed to be more prominent when shaping policy”.
