•
FARMING SEMINAR
•
THE
VEGETABLE
FARMER •
JANUARY 2017
S
arah Church of Defra
stressed that while the
vote to leave the
European Union had created a
mountain of extra work and
muchmore uncertainty, the
overall vision of the
government for environmental
and food policy had not
changed. “We want to be the
first generation to leave the
natural environment in a better
state thanwe inherited it,” she
said.
However, she alsowarned
that this needed to bemarried
to a robust food production
policy whichwas resilient to
shocks from external markets:
“We need people to
understand how vital the
[farming] sector is. Our focus is
to ensure the continued success
of the sector. Farmers and
landowners have a crucial role
to play. We want to be one of
themost resource efficient
countries in the world.”
Achieving this ambitionwill
require action across a range of
fronts, including tackling food
waste, said Sarah. To put the
issue into perspective, if global
foodwaste was a country, it
would be the third largest
emitter of greenhouse gases
after China and the United
States.
However, waste is not the
only challenge for the sector.
Continued access to important
EUmarkets, access to labour,
improving global trade,
consumer protection,
supporting diverse land use and
basing policy on scientific
evidence all feature on Defra’s
agenda.
The industry is expected to
gain a better understanding of
how these different goals
will fit together when the
Department publishes its
25 Year Food & Farming
Plan for consultation.
However, the document
has been promised for
quite a while now and
Brexit is unlikely to have
done anything to speed
up its release.
Seasonal labour
However, time is running
out if the country is to
address the pressing need
for seasonal agricultural
labour warned NFU
Deputy President Minette
Batters. “There is no
greater policy challenge
for farmers at themoment,”
she stressed.
“Labour is on red alert. We
currently need 85,000 seasonal
workers in horticulture alone,
and that figure is set to rise to
90,000 by 2020. Without them
there will be no one to pick our
strawberries, our asparagus or
our flowers. As consumers we
have taken availability for
granted.”
She also pointed out that the
Brexit vote was already having
an impact, withworkers from
overseas earning less due to the
fall in the value of the pound
and feeling less welcome in the
country. However, she said the
issue was so important that it
would be a top priority for the
NFUwith or without the
referendum result. “We are
asking for a global SAWS
scheme,”
explainedMs
Batters. “Unless
we can solve this
issue we will have
British fruit and
veg rotting in the
fields next
summer.”
Future
agricultural
policy
In terms of
wider agricultural
policy she said
that politicians
and
conservationists
could not
continue to
separate the environment from
farming. “We talk about the
environment on one side and
food on the other, but there
should be a shared vision for
both. We need to supply safe,
27
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NFU ISSUES STARKWARNING ON
LABOUR ATWESTMINSTER CONFERENCE
Not surprisingly, the impact of Brexit and access to labour
for the horticultural sector dominated the discussion at a
Seminar on Policy Priorities for the UK Food, Drink &
Farming Industry organised by theWestminster Food &
Nutrition Forum at the start of December.
by Richard Crowhurst
Sarah Church of Defra.
Minette Batters, Deputy President of the NFU.
