For many, still, being a grower is more than just a job, just a business. Whether you’re the third generation running the family farm or nursery or involved in a brand new state-of-the-art controlled environment facility you’ll know the long-term commitment and forward planning this way of life demands.
Being confident enough to make decision on next year’s cropping plan let alone investing in automation for the next decade relies on knowing the political landscape on which your decisions are based won’t change overnight. Will the immigration system give me access to the workers I need next season; will planning legislation mean I have to abandon thoughts of expansion over the next five years?
So, the government’s undertaking to ‘work with growers to develop a world- leading horticulture strategy’ for England touted by the national food strategy paper seemed like a breath of fresh air.
Alas as we all know a week is a long time in politics and we’ve seen two changes of Defra ministers since the food strategy was published last summer not to mention the resignation of its author Henry Dimbleby because he felt his recommendations were being ignored.
As we report on page 4 we now know there won’t be a horticulture strategy after all. So while we have had some welcome political ‘wins’ lately in individual areas such as expansion of the seasonal worker scheme, funding for technology R&D and the opening of the House of Lords horticulture inquiry, we continue to miss out on the over-arching benefits a long-term political vision would bring our sector –and the society we serve. We are a relatively small part of the economy but the only one capable of delivering the food strategy’s goal of improving the nation’s dietary health, as well as maintaining and enriching its planted environment.
It’s not just the bad news itself but the way it was ‘buried’ that appears disrespectful at best. It took a parliamentary question from an opposition MP to get Defra to admit it had decided at least five months ago (when it whispered the news via a reply to a question from a bishop in the House of Lords) to abandon the strategy altogether.
Coming on top of the way tightened peat reduction targets were slipped out recently, this is pattern that’s becoming a little too familiar. Growers have plenty of experience of taking the rough with the smooth but managing a path through government short-termism is impossible if its decisions are kept under wraps.
The June issue also includes articles on,
- Growers left in cold on energy support
- Flower Trials preview
- Low cost alternative for many crops
- National Plant Show preview
- Dutch Spring Trials
- Crop protection on edibles
To read these and more from “The Commercial Greenhouse Grower” subscribe today – find out more here.