The news that Baroness Minette Batters has been appointed by Defra Secretary of State Steve Reed to lead a review into Farm Profitability should be good news.
There is no doubt about her abilities, her knowledge of the farming sector, or her commitment to so the right thing for Britain’s many farmers and growers. By announcing the review, and such a high profile and popular pro-farming figure to lead it, Steve Reed is clearly hoping to reset the awful relationship that his department, the Treasury and the wider government have created with UK agriculture and other parts of the rural community.
Writing in her final column for Country Life magazine (she is stopping in order to devote her time to the review), Minette said, “I debated long and hard whether I should accept; this Government hasn’t won many farming friends since coming to power. When I weighed it up, there were two alternatives: first, someone else could be appointed, potentially from a non-farming background, which wouldn’t be great; secondly, Defra might decide not to do it at all. Given my apolitical status in the House of Lords, it seemed wrong to turn my back on the farming sector in its hour of need. Yet I am under no illusions as to how difficult it will be.”
She is right to say that there are no silver bullets to fix the UK’s broken food system and to restore farms to its heart, making them profitably and environmentally sustainable in the process. Vegetable growers in particular understand the competing pressures to produce food nutritious food to some of the highest standards in the world, as a price which rewards growers but is also attainable to those in society who need it most (many of whom currently struggle to afford fresh produce).
Ensuring retailers and processors pay a price which reflects the true value of food while allowing our famously competitive grocery sector to thrive is a challenge that is almost impossible. Then, on top of the economics farmers have to contend with restrictive planning rules, a continually diminishing toolbox for crop protection, labour challenges, and a lack of understanding about food and farming in the general population.
As if these challenges aren’t enough, we have a government that actively seems to be waging war on food production and security. Despite some warm words, so far almost every policy announcement has crushed confidence, reduced investment and diminished domestic production.
As well as trying to draw all of these various points together in her review, Baroness Batters will have the ghost of Henry Dimbleby’s 2021 National Food Strategy looking over her shoulder. As NFU president at the time, she was one of many who welcomed the publication of his extremely in-depth and joined up plan. Like her own review, it was announced with much government fanfare (albeit by the previous administration) but as soon as the scale of the issue became clear, the government balked and refused to implement almost any of its recommendations, resulting in a missed opportunity to change this nation’s heath for an entire generation and leaving a huge white elephant of a report for ministers to pointedly ignore.
Given this government’s food and farming policies to date, and the continual focus on reducing budgets and spending from the Chancellor, Baroness Batters will not be the only one hoping that her own eventual report doesn’t share the same fate. Farmers and growers will also be holding the government to account once her recommendations are published.
To read more from “The Vegetable Farmer” subscribe today – find out more here
