 | Home |
| What's New |
| Speeches & Articles |
| Newsletter - Nov 2008 |
| Biography |
| Diary |
| Contact Information |
| Photo Album |
| Parliamentary Highlights |
| Publications |
| Links |
| MEPs' Transparency |
| Conservative Party |
| Latest News from Conservatives.com |
| Conservative Party Website |
 |
|
Notes on British Farming in the Twenty-first Century
By Neil Parish MEP What do we expect the farming industry to deliver?
A Short History Britain signed up to the much maligned CAP (Common Agriculture Policy) when we joined the Common Market in 1972. The CAP, like policy pursued by British Governments after the Second World War, was designed to produce food and in that respect it was successful. However, overproduction was inevitable as farmers received subsidy to produce, not compete and by the 1970s Europe was producing massive food mountains. The European taxpayer bore the cost as the EU paid an artificial 'intervention' price to maintain farmer income as supply far outstripped demand. The environment also felt the negative effects of an increasingly intensive industry. Meanwhile, excess produce was exported, sold or 'dumped' on to the world market at low prices. Poor countries could not compete with these prices and their farming industry suffered as a result. Despite some moves to reform the CAP, with the introduction of milk quotas in 1984 and the McSharry reforms of 1992, the CAP continued to pay direct subsidies. For example, premiums continued to be paid for the number of beef cattle a farmer kept or the number of ewes kept, with a resultant flooding of the market and a drop in quality. This is not competition in a free market. CAP Reform In 2005 we will see the beginnings of the new CAP reform package that intends to cut the link between subsidy and production. Finally, we are moving in the right direction but we need to go much further. The crux of CAP reform is the Single Farm Payment. The SFP is a single direct payment to farmers, received on compliance with certain environmental standards. Payment is not linked to the amount produced; instead farmers will be paid according to acreage held on a 'regional' basis. The SFP will be phased-in over 8 years, during which time the 'historic' subsidy payment will be phased out. The historic payment is the average subsidy paid to farmers in the period 2000-2002. There are several problems with the reform thanks to the complicated implementation strategy laid down by Secretary of State for Agriculture, Margaret Beckett. In England, farmers face a different form of SFP implementation to that of Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. In 2005, English farmers will receive their SFP based on 90% historic analysis and 10% regional analysis. The rest of the UK will receive payment in 2005 based on 100% historic analysis. This creates a scenario whereby a Welsh farmer could receive substantially more payment than an identical farm that happens to fall over the border in England. Good livestock and dairy farmers in England will also lose out. The Beckett reform divides England into three areas - moorland (receiving the smallest SFP), Seriously Disadvantaged Areas (SDAs) and non SDAs (receiving the most lucrative SFP). Good farmers with high stocking density in SDAs will not get the support they deserve. The mystical level playing field that farmers want across Europe will not even exist in the UK. How to Help Our Farmers Farmers actually want to make a living from the market place, not from subsidy, but they need help to achieve this. Increase Farmer Control We have to act to allow farmer owned cooperatives to come together to control their industry. Supermarkets hold all the ace cards at the moment and give farmers a bad deal. We need to go down a similar road to the dairy cooperatives of Fonterra in New Zealand and MD Foods in Denmark where they control over 90% of all domestic milk production and farmers benefit from the enhanced bargaining position. The creation of Fonterra and MD Foods was driven by the potential to increase efficiency within the industry, to increase the returns paid to farmers and to let farmers control their destiny. We need to change British law if necessary to allow farmer owned cooperatives to control the majority of the market. Promote local labelling and traceability I am opposed to regional government but I am completely sold on a local and regional food policy. We must promote and label our local food so that consumers are looking for it and asking for it to be put on supermarket shelves. Too often food processors will source their ingredients from outside the UK yet because the food is processed in Britain the product says it is a UK product, leading people to believe that they are eating British food when they are not. Consumers have a right to know where their food is coming from. Country of origin labelling for primary food products and processed food products must be obligatory. Support Animal Welfare We have a very high standard of animal welfare in the UK. Our methods of rearing livestock are among the best and we need to be able to label our products as such. If animal products that have not been produced to our high standards are imported into the UK then they must also be labelled with that information. Consumers must have a choice to buy British and support better animal welfare standards. Reduce Defra bureaucracy We now have more Defra officials than we have dairy farmers - we must tackle over-regulation of the UK farming industry. The new CAP reform is supposed to reduce red tape - Defra must break the habit of 'gold plating' EU regulation and take this chance to reduce bureaucracy. Farmers will become eligible for the Single Farm Payment only on compliance with certain environmental standards - known as 'cross compliance'. Cross-compliance requires farmers to adhere to 18 EU directives along with 'Good Farming Practice.' These standards must be monitored by one agency. There is potential for 'armies' of bureaucrats (environmental agencies) to be dispatched to farms with different briefs, turning cross-compliance into a Defra job creation scheme. This must not be allowed to happen. Treat Farmers Fairly Defra's approach to farmers must change. The prevailing attitude from Defra and the Rural Payments Agency (RPA) assumes all farmers are guilty of conspiring to break the rules until they can prove their innocence. We want a system where farmers are not drowned in paperwork, where they are given more protection from the rules and are not unduly penalized. Fight EU Legislation Too often the Secretary of State for Agriculture, Margaret Beckett, will not stand up for our farmers when she meets her European counterparts to debate new regulation. The British government must learn to fight for British farmers and not put our farmers into a European straight-jacket of regulation. Look After Tourism Farms in national parks, environmentally sensitive areas and special landscape areas need support to keep these areas grazed and looked after. Not only are they important in their own right but they are also valuable for their attraction to tourists. Tourism and farming in many areas are intrinsically linked and we need to give help to green tourism. Encourage young farmers It is easy to talk about farming today without thinking about the farming of tomorrow. Young farmers must be encouraged and supported. Share-farming policies must be encouraged. This is where a retired farmer eligible for the SFP can enter into agreement with a young farmer who cannot afford the capital costs needed to enter the farming industry. They can operate two separate businesses on one area of land, resulting in a single output of sales. Promote a Bio-fuel Market Bio-fuels are a way of replacing fossil fuels and can help farms to find new markets for their cereal and oilseed. There needs to be a tax reduction on bio-fuels to bring in the investment to build this area of the industry. Fight for fair trade with the rest of the world The restructuring of the CAP and the WTO trade agreements have meant that EU export subsidies are falling while EU imports of products are rising. We must continue to press for an end to trade-distorting export subsidies in all appropriate cases. For instance, the appalling waste of £600 million of taxpayers' money in subsidising tobacco production must be stopped. When opening up trade we need to be especially mindful to protect our industry against farm imports into the EU that are not produced to our exacting standards. We fully support trade liberalisation but must not let EU regulations price our products out of the market. A Conservative Government Although my notes are brief their aim is to raise some important issues for further discussion. British farmers have had a bumpy ride over the last 50 years being pulled from pillar to post, adapting to reform after reform, dealing with disease outbreaks and dwindling incomes and it is time they saw the light at the end of the tunnel. A future Conservative government will need to cut bureaucracy, slim down Defra, fight for British interests in Europe and help farmers in the ways I mention above. Most importantly I want to install a Conservative government that will let British farmers do what they do best - farm our countryside. Neil Parish MEP Elected in 1999, Neil Parish is a Conservative Member of the European Parliament for the South West. Neil currently sits on the Agriculture and Fisheries Committees in the European Parliament. He is the Conservative Delegation Agriculture Spokesman. Neil's other roles in the European Parliament include Deputy Chief Whip of the Conservative Delegation, Chairman of the Delegation for Relations with Australia and New Zealand and Vice-President of the Intergroup on the Welfare and Conservation of Animals. Neil stands up for British farmers and played an instrumental role in founding the European Parliament Temporary Inquiry into the Foot and Mouth Disease in 2002 that damned the government. |