UK must fight hard on CAP reform

The UK is historically perceived as being on the periphery of EU negotiations on key issues like the euro, the budget or the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).

Despite Caroline Spelman’s insistence that the coalition Government is determined to embark on the next round of CAP reform in a spirit of ‘positive relationships’ with EU partners, her comments this week suggested the same old story may be about to unfold.

Her clearly stated desire to push for a substantial shift of funds away from direct payments and towards pillar 2 rural development policies seems to put her odds with other member states and Brussels.

Nocton Dairies – planning for a better future?

At long last the planning application for Nocton has been submitted. With fewer than half the original cow numbers, the people behind the development will be hoping this will be enough of a change to enable the permission to be granted with fewer objections.

But almost 4,000 cows is still a lot by anyone’s standards. And there will be little doubt that people in the villages surrounding the proposed development will think there are about 3,500 cows too many.

Sketchy details of CSR impact testing farmers’ faith in Government

The Comprehensive Spending Review announcement was not the ‘big bang’ many in the farming industry had feared.

The October 20 announcement certainly delivered on its promise of massive budget cuts for Defra and its agencies’.

But establishing how the £700m cut would impact on the industry has not been straightforward. The details were initially sketchy, at best, and on occasions where they were provided, confusing.

The girl from the Yeo Valley adverts

Continuing the theme of advertising and farming – see Elle MacPherson and Jenson Button – I thought it was time for an update on Yeo Valley, whose advert has been a hit on Saturday night TV.

And specifically, the girl in the Yeo Valley ads.

Alexandra Evans. 21-year-old winner of Britain’s Next Top Model and, according to Now magazine, the ‘most famous woman on Saturday night TV’.

Cheryl Cole might disagree. And Danni Minogue too.

Farm safety – vital, but too often ignored

NO-ONE ever plans to have an accident. In farming, most people are fairly aware of the risks they face. And many are also aware of the risks they take – often on a regular basis.

But few, perhaps, take the time to consider the consequences for them or their family or friends should that risk turn out to be the one time things go catastrophically wrong.

Defra’s £700 million question

Last Wednesday at a press conference Defra Secretary Caroline Spelman was asked how her department would save £700 million over the next four years. She got to £316 million before running out of answers. The worrying thing is she either doesn’t know where the rest of the savings will come from or she doesn’t want to tell us.

Ominous either way.

£700 million is equivalent to a 29 per cent cut in her department’s spending and it was the figure outlined by Chancellor George Osborne in his Comprehensive Spending Review to help Britain reduce its crippling debt.

Mrs Spelman announced the following savings to our huddle of eager journalists:

• £66 million in rural development money
• £61 million in flood defence spend
• £174 million by reducing staff numbers and making administration efficiencies
• She cobbled together a further £3 million saving by stopping 7 waste PFI projects and £12 million by reforming the Environment Agency’s staff lease car scheme (whatever that is)

That is a total saving of £316 million over the next four years.

But despite repeated questioning from the bemused hacks she failed to divulge where the remaining £384 million savings would come from. 

Nobody denies the need to make savings but farmers want more answers on where. Will it be found down the back of a Defra sofa?

Food scams break a sacred trust with consumers

If you ordered lamb on a menu and it made a point that it was from a farm in Hampshire, that is exactly what you would expect.

And you would be surprised to discover it was actually from New Zealand.

But it is a discovery made recently – among others – by local authorities. And, more worryingly for Welsh farmers, they also discovered in one area that about half the lamb sold as Welsh didn’t actually come from Wales.

In a day and age when the provenance and authenticity of food is a major selling point, the temptation to “add value” by being less than truthful about its origins must be increasing.

Don’t let AgriLive demise damage shows

Is it a case that the RASE is damned if it does, and damned if it doesn’t?

Is it better that it cancels an event which is likely to lose more money rather than ploughing on with it regardless?

Or will many people just see it as another indictment of an organisation that is out of touch and has lost its way?

The news that it and its event partner the Royal Smithfield Club have taken the decision to cancel this year’s AgriLive event will have come as a shock to some.

Launched last year, it was perhaps quieter than many would have liked, yet it was a good attempt to provide a technical and showing event for the red meat industry.

But for trade exhibitors and sponsors, finding money to attend and support additional events – and new ones at that – was always going to be difficult at a time of tight budgets.

Daily Mail clone stories and a serious blood pressure issue

Is it just me or is the Daily Mail waging a campaign to destroy the British farming industry?

I’m no fan of the Mail – in fact few newspapers make my blood boil with such regularity, but this week it has reached new heights.

This morning marks its third front page on the cloned cow revelations which have focused a media storm on one unsuspecting farmer in Inverness.

Under the headline ‘Farmer with 96 Clones : As the big supermarkets vow NEVER to sell clone meat or milk, the Mail tracks down the farm at the centre of the controversy’ it carries a picture of Steven Innes who runs Newmeadow Holsteins.

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.