George Eustice, Environment Secretary, gave a speech at the annual NFU Conference last week, outlining government plans for agriculture.
What he said
Mr Eustice praised farmers for their resilience and responsiveness when faced with challenges such as COVID-19 and EU Exit.
He also welcomed improved prices for some farm products, especially in livestock sectors. The majority of his speech, however, looked to future agricultural policy.
The new Agriculture Act allows the government to intervene in supply chains, creating new codes and regulations to increase fairness and transparency.
This is seen as an essential “partner” to the introduction of new subsidy systems, ensuring that farm businesses are profitable through food production, rather than through subsidy.
Mr Eustice indicated that new regulation is being pursued initially in the diary sector, with a view to expanding activity into other sectors later.
Mr Eustice discussed measures to “open up” farming to a wider range of participants, encouraging some farmers to retire and others, from outside farming, to enter the market.
Agricultural land owned by local councils is seen as an opportunity to offer wider access to farmland and farming opportunity.
Mr Eustice also described the government’s vision for more sustainable farming.
Some existing elements of environmental management have been loosened – made less rigid and with less draconian penalties for minor infringements.
In their place, new “bottom-up” arrangements are being developed, in consultation with farming stakeholders.
Pilot projects allow farmers to develop their own environmental packages from a set of eight templates.
More templates will be made available later and animal health / welfare standards will be added. From next year, all farms will be able to participate.
What it means
Mr Eustice made a passing reference to national self-sufficiency in food, noting that it has risen in 2020, for the first time since 2014.
This is not something that the UK government has focused strongly on previously, preferring to rely on access to international markets to ensure food security.
EU Exit may mean that self-sufficiency is of greater importance than before, but it is clear that current agricultural policy focuses on environmental protection, not volume of food production.
Rollout of new agricultural policy, along with new market regulations, means that the government will be attempting to execute multiple complex activities in farming, simultaneously – a tough challenge for officials and farmers alike.
The willingness to intervene in supply chains where some participants are perceived as more powerful than others is also of great interest. The aim of achieving “fairness” appears reasonable and even benign, but “fairness” is a subjective measure.
The GSCOP standard, which applies to businesses supplying supermarkets directly, may give some indication of what is intended. It prevents arbitrary changes of terms, late payments and so on.