Agriculture has been undervalued for far too long, according to Baroness Minette Batters, with the government’s approach to the sector in need of a radical overhaul.
And only a more collaborative approach between the industry and policymakers will help it fulfil its growth potential and recover from the challenges of recent years, she said, in a speech delivered just days after concluding her farm profitability review for Defra.
Speaking at the REAP Conference in Peterborough this week, the ex-NFU president said government departments needed to work more closely together on food and farming policy, while also following the lead of how other nations supported agriculture and food production.
Batters’ speech to delegates at the conference, organised by farmer’s organisation Agri-TechE, was light on specific detail on her review’s 57 recommendations, which will now be scrutinised by Defra.
However, “short-term wins” could be achieved via changes to planning reform, grant funding, tax incentives and investment development.
Other initiatives the government should look at included “growth hubs” to increase farm business resilience and the creation of a ‘Food and Drink England’ agency to co-ordinate agrifood policy, as seen in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland – which would simplify what was currently a “very convoluted framework”.
She also singled out New Zealand and Ireland, which “measure everything within their rural economy”, as examples to follow, with the two countries’ agrifood sectors having significantly higher GDPs as a result.
“When I look at how we value things that are important to our economy, such as financial services, cars and aerospace, we measure them in terms of GDP,” Batters said.
“Agriculture is valued at just 0.6% of our GDP – ‘it couldn’t matter less’, was a phrase put to me from Whitehall when I was president of the NFU,” she added.
Read more: Minette Batters to review farm profitability for Defra
Batters was appointed by Defra to lead its farm profitability review in April, which followed farming sector outcry over the Treasury’s changes to Inheritance Tax liabilities for farming businesses and Defra’s abrupt closure of the Sustainable Farming Incentive.
It marked her “last chance, at scale, to try and right what I believe have been a number of wrongs since the [Brexit] referendum and the journey that we are on to date”, Batters said. “I hope Defra will publish this review complete as is in the next couple of weeks.”
She later told The Grocer that the main takeaway from her report would be the need to “establish a partnership” between the government and the sector which was “true and meaningful, not one side telling the other”.
This would require “a new way of working together”, Batters added.
“We have to have a plan for growth, a plan for making, creating, growing, producing more of what we do here – which we currently don’t have,” she insisted, while urging Defra must become more economically focussed.
She added: “This has to work for farming profitability, it has to deliver on government priorities, it has to benefit taxpayers and consumers.”
Her speech came after the All Party-Group on Science and Technology warned domestic food production could fall by 32% by 2050, unless there is urgent action from government.
McCain Foods similarly released a report revealing 51% of farmers have considered leaving the industry due to financial strain, and only 4% believe current government support is adequate.
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