On the 9th Back British Farming Day, the NFU has said that the government must take action to value UK food security and ensure environmental delivery.
Speaking ahead of a breakfast reception for MPs in Parliament, NFU president Tom Bradshaw said: “British farmers and growers are proud to produce the raw ingredients that underpin our essential food and drink sector, the largest manufacturing sector in the UK, worth a huge £148 billion, and employing more than four million people.
“But there are huge challenges. Over the past 18 months we have seen a collapse in farmer confidence, driven by record inflation, falls in farm income and a changing climate with unprecedented weather patterns delivering relentless rain which left thousands of acres of farmland under water.
“While in opposition we heard consistently from Labour that food security is national security. The Prime Minister, speaking at NFU Conference last year, pledged that Labour “aspires to govern for every corner of our country, and will seek a new relationship with the countryside and farming communities on this basis, a relationship based on respect and on genuine partnership.
“We now need to see those ambitions realised. Today we’re calling on government to truly value UK food security by delivering a renewed and enhanced multi-annual agriculture budget of £5.6 billion on the 30 October. This budget is essential in giving Britain’s farmers and growers the confidence they desperately need to invest for the future and deliver on our joint ambitions on producing more sustainable, affordable homegrown food while creating more jobs and delivering for nature, energy security and climate-friendly farming.
“Our farmers and growers are much loved and valued by the public who rank our job as one of the most important and well-respected professions⁴, second only to nursing. 91% also believe farming is important to the UK economy, with 85% believing we should increase our self-sufficiency in British food.
“On this Back British Farming Day, we are at a tipping point, so we call on government, all MPs, to also show their unstinted support. Seize this opportunity to harness the passion and the drive of British farmers and growers to ensure a thriving future – a future that is good for shoppers, good for the environment and good for a secure supply of British food.”
Agricultural underspend
The call for greater funding comes as the Farming and Country Programme (FCP) reveals a £130m underspend of the agricultural budget for 2023/24.
It follows £103m and £125m underspends in 2022/23 and 2021/22 respectively.
Responding to the report, Daniel Zeichner, minister for food security and rural affairs, said: “Time and time again the previous Conservative Government broke their promises to farmers.
“They sold them out in dodgy trade deals and then failed to pay them the funds they were promised.
“The Labour government will restore confidence and stability to farmers to boost rural economic growth and strengthen our food security.”
Victoria Vyvyan, president of the Country Land and Business Association (CLA) said: “Take up in the early stages of ELMs was cautious, but SFI 23 and SFI 24 have seen increasing confidence and there are now many thousands of farmers engaged in the project. It is a good programme and now is not the time to falter.
“The UK Government is building a new way of working with farmers and land managers to deliver good outcomes for food and for the environment, and we will need our full budget to make it work.
“The government’s ambitions are the right ones, but they cannot be delivered on a shoestring. In next month’s budget, the government should commit to an annual £3.8bn farming budget to safeguard the future of our landscapes and rural businesses.”
The NFU called the underspend a ‘kick in the teeth’. Tom Bradshaw added: “We have repeatedly highlighted our concerns about an underspend and at long last we now have an honest admission of Defra’s failure. A £358 million underspend over three years is unacceptable and nothing short of a kick in the teeth to farmers and growers who have faced years of uncertainty and loss of income during the agricultural transition.
“Let’s be clear, this underspend hasn’t happened because the investment isn’t needed. It’s happened because the schemes to replace the Basic Payment Scheme (BPS) have not been completed in time and there are still many gaps and questions unanswered. We have flagged problems with the new Environmental Land Management (ELM) schemes from day one and, despite some improvements, there is a still big gap in spending as the money saved from the continued BPS reductions has sat gathering dust.
“For years, the NFU has pressed the need for the new schemes to be in place before reductions in BPS began to avoid this very issue and avoid funding being left unspent at a time when farmers needed it most.
“Twelve months ago, when there were further issues with the rollout of the new schemes, we were a lone voice calling for reductions in BPS to be paused. It wasn’t, and yet farmers and growers continued to face record inflation levels and devastating weather events. We’re now seeing the consequences as confidence in the sector has collapsed.
“The risk this cumulative lost income poses to the viability of farm businesses, through no fault of their own, is well known. Recent research showed that, on average, upland businesses had lost 37% of their support payments under the 2023 scheme options, despite the public goods they deliver for the nation.
“In opposition, the Food Security Minister said that any underspend in agricultural funding should be rolled over into future years and asked for clarity from Defra about how this would be done. We now ask for the same thing: for government to carry this much-needed funding forward so it can finally be put to its intended use – building resilience, investing in sustainable homegrown food production and delivering the government’s legislated environmental targets.”