Earlier this week, we were very fortunate to have John Powell from DEFRA join us for one of our regular evening meetings. We had a full house of 30 members attend from across the spectrum of our membership. John is Head of Agricultural Sectors Team, Farming and Primary Processing Division, Agri-Food Chain Directorate at DEFRA. A busy man….!
John spoke to us over the course of the evening about a wide range of subjects - reflecting on the huge amount of change taking place in the British farming and food sector – and the DEFRA response to this.
It would be difficult to summarise all the things that John touched upon in the evening, but some of the most important things he mentioned to us struck me as being as follows:
- Farming is going through a tough time at the moment, after the impacts of Brexit, COVID and now the war in the Ukraine and other significant geopolitical tensions around the world - but for DEFRA, food production remains core to its overall objectives. It is looking for farmers to be more innovative, more productive, make better use of technology in the supply chain, with high standards of quality assurance and animal welfare - and also meeting new environmental and sustainability targets too
- Current ag and food policy revolves around 3 key areas/pillars - environmental land management schemes, the animal health and welfare pathway and the roll out of various grant schemes including the Farming Investment Fund. All these schemes have been designed to be more flexible than maybe in the past and easy to apply for, but there is also an element of evolution of policy measures, not a revolution of them. There is considerable government funding available to help farmers navigate the transitional period we are going through. This ranges from relatively small grant schemes to much bigger investment programmes. Farmers can also be more selective than in the past about how long these schemes last for and which elements of them are most beneficial
- DEFRA is fully committed to working with farmers to understand their challenges and obstacles to progress and then develop policies that help these to be overcome. This is being achieved by extensive consultation work with farmers and through various pilots and test and trail schemes to see what works best
- Leaving the CAP means the UK will pursue a more free market approach to farming, without subsidies, however this does not mean that the market will not be subject to regulation where it is needed. Witness the recent/ongoing enquiries by DEFRA into eggs, dairy, pigs horticulture etc. These invariably focus on the relationship between farmers and processors
- Prices for farmers are volatile and vary by sector. Lamb and beef prices are high at the moment, as they are for pigs - but in the cereals sector, after 2 years of high levels, they have slumped by almost 50% albeit back to more historical levels, not least due to world market demand and supply
- Heavy rainfall in the first part of this year has been a major problem for many farmers, but provided there are no more market disruptions and some dry weather, the situation is expected to recover. DEFRA continues to monitor the situation closely
- Animal diseases have been another problem area – with avian flu, particularly and more recently Blue Tongue Disease hitting some farmers hard. While the total number of cases has been relatively small compared to overall production in the UK, this can still have a big impact at farm level.
- The development of exports of UK agri food products are also important going forward, with better market access achieved for some products in the US, Chile, Mexico and Vietnam as examples of progress being made. The dairy sector has benefitted from an additional ￡1 million of government funding to promote exports and 17 agri-food attaches have been appointed and placed in British Embassies around the world to help boost UK exports.
- The Food Security Index will be introduced by DEFRA to create a greater degree of transparency and which has not existed before in the UK. It reflects an understanding at DEFRA that the traditionally secure routes to market we have enjoyed in the UK for agricultural and food products - can no longer be automatically taken for granted. This is not least because of COVID, the war in the Ukraine and the impact of climate change – the latter, in particular, is a subject we just have to tackle and doing so, remains a government priority.
This was a highly enjoyable and informative evening. The Thames Valley branch at its best! Thanks to John for making the time to come and talk to us and to those who attended. This is much appreciated. It is clear that there is a good deal of activity going on at DEFFRA and as a result of this meeting, it would be hard to go away without being better informed as to what is happening, how and why.
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