Organic and conventional producers must pull together for UK farming

‘Yes, perhaps we have upset the conventional farming community by continually saying we were right and they were wrong.’

 It is one of the most surprising quotes in Farmers Guardian this week, most of all because it came from former Soil Association director Patrick Holden.

For too long, the Soil Association has worked on the premise that organic is good, while conventional farming is inferior in some way.

For its former director to say organic farmers should ‘not be out there thinking and talking of ourselves as organic farmers because that separates us from the rest of the farming community’ is such a massive change of direction, it beggars belief.

Having retired from the post, Mr Holden is free from having to toe the party line, but it is a line about which he was very clear as director.

His latest comments will not have gone unnoticed by his previous employer.

Ex-Sun editor tells farmers to cheer up to win PR battle

IT was cold – very cold – at the Oxford Farming Conference but some of the messages that came out of it should warm the heart of farmers.

It had looked like food security was going to be the dominant topic. But in the end it was all about image.

Hilary Benn began by improving his among his many farming critics. “I want British farmers to produce as much food as possible. No ifs. No buts,” was the soundbite intended to encapsulate the mood of his speech.  

It worked, with most regular Hilary watchers describing it as his best and most pro-farming speech yet, with the caveat that he will ultimately, as he has always, wished, be judged on what he does.

There was plenty more of interest over the days but there was no doubt that that the best was very much reserved for last.

As the conference was drawing to a close, the IGD’s Joanne Denney Finch unveiled a survey showing, to the surprise of virtually all, how much the public love farmers.

Nearly nine out of 10 wanted supermarkets to stock more British food, with 81 per cent saying farmers should be paid more. Farmers were described as ‘important’ and only doctors and nurses were seen as more hard-working.

Then it got even more interesting as former Sun editor David Yelland delivered a classic ‘good news, bad news’ paper to those who had braved the cold inside the 19^th Century venue until the bitter end.

The good news was that not anything as hostile to farmers as the industry believes, according to conversations Mr Yelland had with national newspaper editors and influential broadcasters prior to his speech.

“The media does not hate you at all,” said Mr Yelland, now a leading PR executive and urbane, thoughtful and quietly spoken, as far removed from the image of a Sun editor as it is possible to be.

With a highly supportive public, too, farmers are, in fact, a ‘marketers dream’ with ‘huge brand loyalty and genuine affection in the hearts and minds of ordinary people’.

But, here’s the rub. Farmers have failed miserably to tap into this goodwill, because they are too miserable. “You are not a cheery lot,” Mr Yelland told suitably glum looking delegates.

That is reflected, he went on, in the negative language farmers use – words like risk, appalled, failure and nightmare – his research unearthed on farming websites like this one.

It is a ‘lexicon of defeat’ and it must be exchanged for some more positive language if farmers are to take advantage of their standing in society.

The first task, he said, is to find the right words and the second is to find the right people to say them. He then ruffled some feathers by questioning whether the NFU had sufficient trust among the public to speak for farmers.

All thought provoking stuff. But is Yelland right? Do the public and media really love farmers? Has the industry let itself down by being too negative? And is the NFU doing a good enough job in promoting the industry.

What do you think? Let us know.