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.

CAP reform: The stuff of nightmares?

So, what’s it to be? What does Europe really want its farmers to do? Does it want them to produce food, or go for a greener approach, managing their land for the public good?

These questions – and many, many more – desperately require answering after the leak of a European Commission draft on the next round of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).

While it is only a draft of something which hasn’t even yet been discussed, the ideas in the document very clearly show where Commissioner Ciolos believes the CAP needs to go. And that’s a greener approach, where farmers are paid, in part, for the environmental work they undertake, in addition to a basic rate of income support.

It’s an interesting move when for so long now, farmers have been told they must become increasingly aware of what the market is doing, and that it should drive production.

It is only a couple of years ago that we saw food riots in other parts of the world, and while Europe hasn’t yet faced this (and, in all likelihood won’t), worldwide supply still drives prices, as is graphically illustrated this season.

In the UK, the leak has produced an interesting split, with the RSPB and CLA on one side – supporting the “greening” approach, while the NFU is warning the draft ideas are complicated and will result in even more restrictions and red tape.

And the idea of ‘voluntary co-financed payments’ for farmers in areas such as LFAs are worrying at a time when governments are seeking to cut spending.

The proposals are to be officially unveiled next month, and the debate will start there. Securing a CAP deal which suits every country in the EU27 will be the stuff of nightmares.

The next few years during which a deal will be hammered out will be the time when the UK’s devolved governments, Defra and all of our farming unions must come together to ensure UK farming plc gets the very best deal it can.

“Greening” is fine, but it’s ensuring a productive, profitable future for the UK’s farmers and the next generation which really matters.

Putting the ‘F’ into the General Election

THE Tories want to put the ‘F’ back into Defra. It was, after all, the present government that took it out in a highly symbolic gesture in 2001. Actually, it was the letter ‘A’ but the effect was the same.

In a post-election departmental revamp, Tony Blair replaced the disgraced Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Maff), with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra). ‘Agriculture’ out, ‘Environment’ in.

The NFU had to fight hard to even get the word ‘food’ onto the Nobel House nameplate, it is said. MAFF, long seen as an agent of the industry, had paid the price for the foot-and-mouth disease calamity.

Defra arrived with a new agenda. It placed the environment at heart of all it controlled, including food and farming policy – all-too-often, farmers maintained, at the expense of their ability to produce food.

The Conservatives pledge to put ‘Farming’ or ‘Agriculture’ back on the Nobel House nameplate, if elected on May 6, is a neat ploy to state their farming credentials against this backdrop.