As far as agriculture and horticulture are concerned, this is the Government that keeps on giving – or more accurately, taking away.
While the industry has been bracing itself for the massive hikes in wages and Employer’s National Insurance contributions due to take effect this month, as well as fighting to get the Treasury to see sense on its proposed changes to Agricultural and Business tax relief, growers could be forgiven for thinking that Defra might keep other key policies on an even keel for a while.
Not a bit of it. First, we had the sudden closure of the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) at a half-hour’s notice, which has not only thrown thousands of farms and businesses (particularly smaller ones) into disarray, and cast doubts on the future of sustainable, nature-friendly farming in the UK. Despite desperate efforts by Defra to spin this immediate closure as good news (despite having previously undertaken to provide plenty of notice about such an event) various organisations from the NFU and CLA, to the Soil Association and environmental groups have rightly criticised the decision, the way it was announced, and the way Government has since tried to spin it to the public and MPs.
Less than 24 hours after this bombshell, Defra wrote to all Producer Organisations (POs) confirming that the Fruit & Vegetable Aid Scheme (FVAS) – which provides their funding – would be ending at the end of the year, despite there being no details about any kind of successor scheme to support the horticultural sector being in place.
As our feature (started before Defra’s announcement and updated to reflect it) points out, this leaves 30 POs – representing around 45 per cent of the UK’s fresh produce production – facing an uncertain future. The total FVAS budget was around £40 million a year, which helped to generate sales worth more than £1 billion of healthy, sustainable fruit and veg produced in the UK to the highest productions standards. The government, which increasing looks like it is waging a deliberate campaign to destroy UK farmers and growers, is undermining that.
People familiar with the matter have said that the Rural Payments Agency (RPA), which administers FVAS funding, was only told of the decision hours before the letter was sent, and others believe that the decision not to extend the scheme was made simply because Environmental Secretary Steve Reed couldn’t cope with anything else in his in-tray.
As if these two policy announcements weren’t a big enough kick to an already embattled sector, it then became apparent that Housing Secretary Angela Rayner’s proposed planning reforms would allow local councils to force farmers and landowners to sell them land below its market value by ignoring so called ‘hope values’. No wonder countryside organisations and others have called the plans “legalised theft” and “a step too far.”
In her letter to POs, Defra’s Gill Laishley said, ‘the Government is focused on… boosting Britain’s food security’. As more reports come in of extreme weather threatening production in areas of the Mediterranean which have become key supply sources for UK produce (this time in Alicante), highlighting the increasing fragility of our established supply chains, the Government is taking a wreaking ball to UK food production.
As farmer and grower confidence sinks to an all-time low, it is no wonder that that the NFU has called Defra a “failing department”. Its ministers look increasingly out of their depth, lurching from one flimsy excuse for their incompetence to another, and it is no wonder that calls for more militant action by farmers and growers beyond protests in Westminster are growing.
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