Two weeks ago I was asked to take part in a debate called “Get orf my land . .
. how the media see landowners” in order to “draw attention to a popular and
negative perception of landowner attitudes”. I was to put the negative side
of the picture. Why? Because I had written a column saying that rural
poverty was not generally as bad as urban poverty.
I said no to the debate, because, as I explained to the man from the Country
Land and Business Association, which represents landowners and farmers, I
don’t object to landowning or to farmers. “It seems to me,” he explained,
“that our constituency’s public reputation has gone from one extreme
(friendly yokel leaning on gate) to the other (environmental vandal pigging
out on Euro-subsidy) in 20 years.”
Which was nicely put, I thought, but also wrong. The reputation of farming is
a lot more complicated than that, and the public and media generally give
farmers a pretty sympathetic hearing. This despite farmers doing themselves
no favours by leaping up and complaining that everyone is against them.
Take the responses to the outbreak of foot-and-mouth in Surrey. Richard
Haddock, chairman of the South West National Farmers’ Union, is the worst
offender. He declared on Monday that farmers had been “shafted” by their own
Government. “We are now left with the mess that someone else has created —
and we are in no position to pay for it.” “What we want to know now,” Mr
Haddock continued, “from a government which seems to have been taking
delight in picking on farmers, is what are they going to do to put it right?”
I think we all know the answer to that. Estimates of potential costs swiftly
rose from tens of millions of pounds to £500 million (admittedly the media
play a part in inflating these). As soon as something happens to hurt the
farming industry, everybody’s thoughts turn immediately to compensation —
because we know that we shall have to pay it. Compensation for birds
notionally culled if bird flu strikes, for sick cattle, for lost business
while movement restrictions are in place, for flooded crops . . . time and
again it is apparent that here is an industry incapable of sustaining itself.
When large parts of the country were flooded this summer, I saw local
businessmen humbly grateful that somebody had lent them £500 to cover
immediate costs, newsagents and grocers surveying wrecked stock and hoping
they could keep solvent until the insurance paid out. There was no
assumption that the Government would and should pay.
Farming is different. They don’t take out insurance for loss of stock. Fewer
than 10 per cent of farmers have foot-and-mouth insurance, and even then it
doesn’t cover the cost of slaughtered cattle – the Government does that –
but subsidiary costs such as wages, rent and bank charges. Farmers generally
insure their property and equipment, and take out liability insurance in
case, for instance, they make anybody sick, but they do not cover for
disease in crops or animals.
“The economics of farming really mean that they are not going to be economic,”
explained a spokesman for NFU Mutual, Tim Price, yesterday. “People
generally decide to take the risk.” So here is an industry economically
incapable of insuring against predictable risks. No more farmers are insured
against foot-and-mouth than were at the time of the last outbreak six years
ago.
In 2001, the Government proposed talks with the insurance industry to explore
the creation of a joint fund to mitigate future losses. There were working
parties, talks . . . It never happened. Farmers’ leaders reacted furiously
to suggestions that farmers should cover themselves.
And still the animals are unvaccinated, because farmers believe it would make
the meat less profitable, and so the taxpayer picks up the risk again.
Arguably, this is right: we pay a proper price for our meat in the end. Our
chickens come home to roost.
I imagine many farmers would love to raise beautiful, organic animals in
small, pretty fields and sell them and their milk and other products at
realistic prices. If they cannot, then that is the debate we should be
having. What we shouldn’t have is farmer railing at minister and media;
complaining that everyone is against him and irritating taxpayers by
assuming a right to immediate compensation for everything.
This outbreak of foot-and-mouth appears to be no fault of the farming industry
and I am sorry for the devastated farmers. Their case for compensation is
clear. It is obvious, as they lurch from one crisis to the next, that many
farmers around the country are at breaking point.
Ministers know it too. Far from “taking delight in picking on farmers”, they
are in my experience sympathetic to the problems. Many have farmers in their
constituencies.
Unless the farming industry itself chooses leaders who, instead of posing as
victims or rural angels who “feed the cities”, are prepared to engage
honestly and realistically with government and consumer, then it is hard to
see how the industry as a whole can be helped long-term. Sympathy will run
out very, very fast if we see another mass cull of animals this summer, for
instance, because farmers themselves closed off debate about vaccination.
Instead of railing about how everybody hates them, farmers’ leaders ought to
be directly challenging consumers more about what they are prepared to pay,
and for what. How come we only see the inside of a slaughterhouse when it is
empty?
Farmers are neither friendly yokels nor environmental vandals pigging out on
subsidy. What they are, are businesspeople operating in a market economy in
a sensitive area where consumer greed meets animal welfare and the
environment. People — politicians, consumers, the media — recognise that.
It’s the farmers who so often sound as if they do not.
Its quite obvious why the writer chose not to take part in the debate she was invited too. She has no real idea of rural living or life at all.....She may live in the country, but as already put so eloquently, she understands it not a jot. Countryside...she should remember..is a very different word from playground.
She applauds government, (surprise , surprise) , she maintains farmers whinge...but has she spoken to any farmers? If she has, she would not like what she would hear,,,,..Especially if you dare mention DEFRA. She ought to try expousing what she believes in balanced debate...but she gave up on that , did she not? Exchangeing that for a snipe from an ivory tower.
To be honest, we should not be surprised at the article...this is, after all, the same person who told us how we would miss Tony Blair so much
N Wilson, Bourne, Lincs
Mr Rees is right about the tourist industry in 2001 I sold countrywear at that time and as a result now sell none. However its not just the farmers that are subsidised. The insurance industries responce to the recent floods is not to take a hit to its profits NO. They have put up their premiums to cover the loss. Banks make their money through interest charged to us and who sets those rates? Yes you've guest. The Bank off England. So if they need higher profits they put up rates.
Oil companies put up the price of petrol as soon as crude prices increase. Do they make a loss? NO.
I'm with Bjorn lets go live in France at least if they disagree with anything they tip it up, and invariably they have a better life for it.
PHIL EDWARDS, LEEDS, U.K.
Alice,
in the last F&M epidemic the government consulted more only a tiny minority of (large scale) livestock farmers about vaccination - I have yet to meet a fellow farmer who was consulted. Very, very, few of us export stock, so any reduction in value for export is negligible across the industry. More significant is the fact that it was only "vaccination to kill" that was on offer: in other words only as a method reducing virus spread, with all vaccinated stock to be killed later and incinerated. Being faced with all ones cherished stock shot and incinerated now, or after up to 3 months if vaccinated (as happened in The Netherlands), is not much of a choice.
I agree that continuous moaning is certainly irritating and probably counter-productive. Very little about farming gets reported correctly, and the positive response to that is for us farmers to become better communicators. All the same, the incompetence of DEFRA passeth all understanding.
Dick Plumb, Cambridge, UK
When Volvo recall cars for safety checks they bear the cost, not the car owners. When farmers poisin us with their cattle fed with the remains of sheep fed with the remains of chicken droppings and the cattle have to be destroyed, we pay. Discuss.
Michael Freeman, London,
Another misconceived dig at the agriculture business in the UK - when will it end? 1) The 'subsidy' so often rolled out to bash the farmer is common across Europe and is granted by the EU. Yes we pay up - but why should our indigenous business be disadvantaged whilst the French, German etc farmer benefit? The majority of British farmers would like to see the subsidy dropped if it led to a level playing field across Europe. Europhiles don't like this idea. 2) Is it worth having an indigenous business? Consider that our farmers are subject to some of the most rigorous controls (often 'gold plated' EU ones) then our homegrown food is amongst the best quality in the world. 3) Better to spend the money on '3rd world' farmers. OK good idea - but - generally they are not as efficient as our own. Also this is fine if you want the food miles to go with it. And are you happy to abdicate food security beyond our borders. All in all we should appreciate our homegrown business.
simon, UK,
I am horrified by some of the comments made by people who clearly have very little idea how the farming industry works.I don't claim to be an expert but I have visited hundreds of farms and have found very few where the farmers have sufficient funds to be driving round in brand new mercs and range rovers. Farmers work incredibly hard for little profit. The farming industry is what helps keep the countryside looking like it does. The current subsidies system is skewed to favour land rather than food production so it is not just farmers that benefit from it. It is the supermarkets and consumers that drive demand so to say ''Why don't they stop overproducing? Then they would get higher prices for their product (duh)!'' doesn't follow, even more cheap meat would simply be imported from abroad (where welfare conditions are often poorer) to meet the demand.
Emily , Warwickshire,
Alice Miles
A very fair piece but I think you make a mistake in not putting more clear water between farmers and their leaders in the NFU.
The NFU isn't a union by any sensible definition of the word; it is a cartel that protects its own.
What serious, smaller farmers (the vast majority) need to do is to form their own union to sideline the NFU and in the end, hopefully, replace it.
It might yet happen.
jeremy james, Yssingeaux, France
Interesting article and of course there are always (at least) two sides to every story.
True, farming is indeed massively subsidised. As one of your correspondents states, engineering never was. So we have no engineering industry any more -in fact we have practically no industry any more, apart from shuffling money about and calling ourselves the "service sector". As the late Fred Dibnah used to lament: We used to be the workshop of the world. We used to be great. If we'd seen the value (and now the cost) maybe we'd have invested more to save it.
Just think: if coal mining had had the same subsidies as farming, we'd not only be able to feed ourselves but we'd be energy self sufficient. Instead we killed it off.
Having said all that farming is indeed hard, thankless work for slim margins of profit. My neighbours here in rural Nottinghamshire run a small farm and they're the two hardest working blokes I've ever met.
We should save farming. One day we might need it.
Dave, Notts, UK
We can criticise the farmers for not provding insurance on their properties but when it makes more sense to raise a sheep and shoot it rather than pay for the transport costs to market and the slaughter house, it shows that there is something wrong in the system. Such costs indicate the poverty of the industry. Livestock farmers tend to be fairly poor - it's the cereal barons of East Anglia and Norfolk who are not short of cash. The subsidies for farming have in part reduced the cost of food as part of the national wage to the lowest level it has ever been - a subsidy for the poor if you like as the impact is felt greatest there. These subsidies have played a role. are they correct though, that is the question?
John, Knutsford, UK
If consumers want an entirely market orientated business, they can no doubt have it. However the price will be giant company run farms, operating to take all advantages of economies of scale. The whole structure will change. At present the worst enemies of farmers are playwrights, poets and the like, who constantly show them as romantic goons, knowing nothing of the outside world. In reality they are mostly
concerned with return on capital, and the whims of the bank manager, as well as worrying about their childrens performance at school, just like anyone else.
DAVID VINTER, Louth, Lincs,, UK.
Around 20 odd years ago, a folk singer recorded a song called "I've never seen a farmer on a bike", nothing changes does it?
Jim, Worcester,
Get your facts right. The vaccine is only a short lived measure. What are we doing with this sort of lab in the country surrounded by livestock. This is just another ploy to knock the country. First we had bse, then foot & mouth(first outbreak and deliberately infected), we have right to roam (does that mean we can walk through all the gardens in suburbia) then we have the hunting ban(we arent allowed to control pests that kill our stock but industry can kill the whole planet with its pollution) Get out of your little fur lined nests and see the whole picture.
ian simpson, otterton, devon
Some of the replies show why farmers feel that their is such ingorance within the Public domain.
UK Govt subsidy to UK agriculture averages about £200 MILLION /year.
The CAP provides an average of £3.4 billion. A sum of money that if we didnt get it back via agriculture subsidies would not come to this country.
As to farm animals being paid for by the State, what rubbish! Certain agricultural sectors like the pig industry receive almost zero subsidy .
UK farm imports approx £ 24 billion
UK farm exports approx £ 10 billion
Comparing business hit by floods to Foot and Mouth is very odd. One could compare like with like if you forced say a flooded Tesco to destroy its whole instore inventory just if one item was water damaged.
No one ever mentions the massive amounts of subsidy handed out to defence companies like BAE.
Malcolm , Yeovil,
No Farmers No Future
Sadaquat Ali Khan, Potters Bar, Hertfordshire
Why on earth don't we treat farming just like any other business? If we had subsidised our totally incompetent car industry we would still be making a loss on every shoddy item it made. It went, and we still have cars, much better ones. Farmers should stop assuming that the rest of us will pick up the bill for all their bad commercial decisions and start realising that every year there will be at least one major problem that is theirs to cope with. Consolidation is urgently needed - Britain has a ridiculous number of tiny farms that are not helped by an unsuitable climate for growing. Our farming skills and equipment are poor compared with France and Germany. Why not let the few who can do the job properly stand on their own feet and then import the rest from the most suitable source?
colin forbes, Shrewsbury UK,
www.editorialstaff.net, Franklin D. Lomax
We ate a $500 US tomato sandwich this week. Our heritage tomato's were not designed for machine picking, shipped 3000 miles, and tasteless due to their designer genes. We had to remove a soft spot, and a bird peck, from one. After a perfect sandwich treat, back in our 80 square feet of $500 garden, we reveled in our plan to cut the cucumbers up, for the quick pickle slices our grandparents fed us, in happier times, and made a bold commitment to buy a farm, in tax kind PA, where homegrown tomato sandwiches, the backbone of civilization, can be got, in season. Trillions of US/EU dollars have kept vast acreages in the hands of those who love the subsidy more than they love the land, and have wrecked our access to decent food in the process. All welfare destroys the recipients, and those who taxed. Calif irrigation salts the land, and impoverishes small farmers who cannot compete. Most of us never taste a real tomato. That is a shame.
Franklin D. Lomax, Alexandria, Virginia, USA
Bravo! I too am constantly amazed at how much farmers complain about their conditions, or how the government treats them, when they receive such massive subsidies. No other economic activity in Europe receives the same attention that they do (CAP subsidies devour half of the EU's budget!) and yet they are selfish enough to complain about how little they are getting whenever they get the chance. Why don't they stop overproducing? Then they would get higher prices for their product (duh)! But the subsidies aren't just funded through the EU budget, the consumers pay for them with higher prices (the Treaty of Rome guarantees a "fair" price for agricultural output), which is passed onto consumers as a regressive tax (it hits the poor to a greater degree because they spend more of their income on food). The average European household spends 1000 Euros every year to support these higher prices: consumers should be protesting not farmers!!!!
Laurence Moore, London, UK
Great article but as we consumers do not want to pay more for our food but want better conditions for the animals, better quality (Organic) what do you expect would happen.
The farmers I know start at 5am and work until 7pm (14 hour days) 6 days a week with only 4 hours on Sunday. That means that they work 88 hours a week. Children of the farm owner often work the same for around £300 per week making it £3.50 an hour.
This is hard work with not a lot of profit so we should change the balance of where the profits are so that the farmers get a better cut of the final profit. At the same time consumers should pay more for their foods.
Joseph Kellie, Edinburgh, Scotland
Several of your commentators, and the columnist heself, have totally missed the point that farming in Britain has become one little cog in an industrial machine driven and developed by the growth of cities and supermarkets. Farming is cheaper overseas. The choice is simple. We can retain our own food production by subsidising the farmers or we can watch our farms go the way of the coal mines. In the end, the choice is up to the voters and, as always, the pound in your pocket is the most effective ballot. You can buy local produce from a local supplier at increased cost or buy from a supermarket, in which case you may as well stop the subsidy and buy overseas.
KR, Stockport,
"Make Poverty History" - Abolish the Common Agricultural Policy. - End all subsidies.
We wouldn't then have the farce of the Cotton farmers in Macedonia using almost half of all the fresh water in Greece to produce a crop that no one wants.
Brian Vallance, LEFKIMMI, Greece
Last time you had a "pop" at the rural community and farmers, I responded, but was "unpublished" by you or a mediator, apparently you are not too happy at being challenged. You claim to live in the country, yet have no understanding of it. I expect you work long hours dipping in and out of offices, wine bars and restaurants before returning to your dormitory village. A Farmer who has a pastural living (farms, feed animals) works seven days a week, 52 weeks a year, during birth periods thats lambing etc, can expect to be on call 24 hours a day. I doubt if any Pastural Farmer has ever seen Tuscany. You feel sorry for the few farmers in Surrey, The export ban on Meat and other farm products affects ALL Farmers. Try to imagine the havoc in your life if your employers failed to pay you on the correct day of the month? Realistically, watch the Channel 4 programme "The lie of the Land". I doubt you will publish this. But there are views more neutral than yours.
Tom Edwards, Taunton,
Bjorn, no farmers do not provide the food we eat, we do by subsidising them via the taxes we pay.
Gary, London, England
Yes the poor hard done by farmers with their Mercs,Audi estates and Range rovers parked outside their modest farmhouses. How do they get by?
Rossco, Inverness, UK
It always surprises me when farmers complain about the hardship they face. I'm told some farmers actually get paid £000's in Government subsidies to NOT grow anything in their fields, in order to keep the price of produce up. If my business was given money to NOT sell anything I'm sure I wouldn't be complaining. When the tourist industry was badly affected by 9/11 (similar in that this was also an event outwith the control of those in the industry) they picked themselves up and worked hard to re-build. I'm not aware of any Tourism operators or Airlines complainig that they were not getting compensation.
Chris Johnston, Tayport, Fife
The media gets agnst about Vaccinating against Foot and Mouth. They castigate farmers for not agreeing to it. I put an alternative view the rest of the EU countries will not allow it. Why? because it is a single market in all agricultural products with in the EU. If Britain did a mass vaccination against FM the other EU countries would find they were unable to export their meat and dairy products to other countries outside the EU. France, Denmark, Ireland, Holland would never agree to a policy that would lead to this situation.
In the last FM outbreak Govt blamed the National Farmers Union for not bringing Farmers 'on board' to agree to mass vaccination. I cannot belive the NFU has that much clout. I suggest it was it was other EU governments with big Agricultural interests saying to the British government 'Don't you dare.' There is increasing globalisation in agricultural products trade, and the days of 'unilateralism' are over.
David Turton, Rushlake Green, UK
One aspect of the fragility of farming economically, particularly livestock farming is that the income is dictated as much by what major supermarkets and food manufacturers are willing to pay, rather than what it actually costs to produce our food. It's yet another example of how skewed our economy is. We pay far more attention to non-essential products, especially imported, rather than focussing our economic structure on essentials like food, water and housing. Food and shelter are two things we NEED to exist, yet both are treated as just another business. The issue around vaccination is reduced to an economic issue, because vaccinated cattle are unsalable, unusable as food. would we expect vehicle manufacturers to add something to each car that made it impossible or illegal to use on a road? the EU Common agricultural policy needs to be either fully re-appraised from scratch, or abandoning altogether to enable our farmers to produce what we need in this country rather than what pays
Rick Anker, Lincoln,
Farming has been fed with habit-forming subsidies and protection for so long that inevitably it is addicted and unhealthy. It's the result of more than 60 years of Government and EU policy. The farmers liked it, too.
Frank Upton, Solihull,
Part of the point is that farming (through subsidy) is the last nationalised industry left. The farms are paid for by the state (or EU) and the prices for the products produced are dictated more by subsidy level than supply and demand.
In a very real sense farming is not a business in the usual economic sense. Farmers are paid to do stuff which (pretty much as a by-product) produces food.
It is not therefore particularly sensible to expect farmers to act in the same way as bussinesses. It might be more sensible to think of farmers as state employees. The animals are pretty much in their entirity paid for by the state and as such are pretty much state property.
It's not fair of the state to randomly remove the mechanism (animals) by which a random state emploee (farmer) does his job and gets paid. It's like arbitrarily removing 5 offices at the DVLA and telling the chaps who work there they have no job.
Of course the whole stupid situation is the fault of subsidies...
Will, Cambridge, UK
Farming being a business should be treated as any other and not be doled out government(taxpayers) money .We all take our chances in life and insure against risks if we want to. farmers are not running a social service, most are probably Staunch Tories, stalwarts of the market system, except when it does not benefit them. The same goes for"Bootiful Turkeys", they caused the problem then get compensated, I wish I had a job like that.
Let the price of meat find it's market value and people pay for it if they want to, that's the way it should be.
Dave Madley, Alicante, Spain
Interesting article. Will Cambridge, also very interesting comments. Are you suggesting that subsidies be removed and farmers be left to the 'mercy' of the open market and supply and demand?
Farmers have always cried poverty. I recall watching a news report in the 70's where a farmer was describing how tough it was. Behind him was a brand new Range Rover and as he was being interviewed his wife pulled up at the farmhouse behind him in a brand new Merc!!
John, Reading, UK
If politicians are so worried about disease control, why are we importing meat that is not raised to the same standards as our own producers. Why is it that a person can arrive on a flight from Africa with a suitcase with blood running out of it and yet nobody questions them as to what they have brought in to the country and they are freely allowed to leave Heathrow (this is not a rant but an actual occurence). Why during the last foot and mouth outbreak did our people over here not do much in the way of distinfecting of vehicles and yet in Ireland they had distinfectant mats at all filling stations. I don't think that blaming politicians for all the ills of farming is going to carry much credibility but they could still make some form of attempt to help the industry by using some common sense with red tape and to allow farmers to farm rather than spending days at a time filling in forms that are about as much use as the proverbial chocolate fireguard
Robert, Perth, Scotland
Farmers campaigned heavily for vaccination during the last foot and mouth outbreak and it was the government who made the decision against it to protect an EU policy against vaccination which Britain introduced.
vf, cumbria,
Good article.Its in the European and UK farmers genes to complain then in the next breath demand compensation. The hole industry has been used to massive subsidies and bail outs in crisis by the tax payer.The last foot and mouth crisis in 2001, the taxpayer bailed the farming industry out to the tune of 8 billion pounds .The rural tourist industry got bugger all and was devasted.The farmers and associated industries that did the transport and clean up made a fortune. Unfortunately the NFU seems more interested in the compensation claims and blaming someone rather than hoping the crisis and spread of desease is contained.Things wont change until subsidies are scrapped and the farming industry has to operate in the free market.
Bill Rees, Truro, Cornwall
Interesting article!
If many other British industries had been given a fraction of the subsidies that the farming industry has then we would still have a vibrant engineering industry for instance. The industry that I spent most of my life working in never got a penny and still had to compete with emerging countries like India and China. Of course we lost. The Farmers get millions and still they winge. If they cannot make a good profit on there own back then they should do something else as many others in the engineering industries have had to.
Wingers they are and wingers I imagine they will stay!
Bob PAlmer, Salisbury, UK
Get real, farming IS difficult....have you ever tried growing your own food? All my symphaty goes to the farmers and their difficulties.
We have a 2nd home in France and my old and very wise neighbour has a saying " the ones that cant grow their own food are worthless"...in fact you cant eat money, just food.
Big cities are in my opinion a bad place to be in the future, they say anarchy is only 3 meals away, and when the everincreasing supplyline to the cities will be disrupted in the future...then I wouldnt like to be there. Look after your farmers, they provide what you eat!
Bjorn, Swindon, Wiltshire