“The UK doesn’t need farmers.”
Not my words but those of government advisor and no doubt the future Farming Minister, Dr Tim Leunig.
This was a statement that leaked from an email back in March last year and it rightly made us wonder whether this government had our best interests at heart. However, it’s a statement that has stayed with me even now, 18 months later, because it felt like we had seen something from behind the curtain that we weren’t meant to.
Is that really what the Conservatives think? No, they wouldn’t. They are “our” party.
Since then, I’ve noticed that there has been a “tone” to stories that feature farming. If you have watched or read the news in the past month, it has rightly been focusing on climate change and what was discussed at COP 26. Now, if you had a bet with yourself that in the same report you would hear the words; agriculture, livestock, methane and plant-based food, you would win nearly everytime.
This will inevitably be followed by footage of a South American cattle ranch or a video clip of a 1980s Zetor in Poland, belching out black smoke and ploughing up pastureland. It’s lazy “phone it in” journalism but it fits their rhetoric.
Switch on Countryfile on a Sunday night and in between Adam Henson parading around in his Schöffel and Ellie showing us how to make a unique chutney out of dandelion and hemlock – no that’s not a typo – the narrative has become more about having lots of large places for people to walk around in than how we actually produce our food.
Climate change is a serious issue but it does feel like a rather large stick that gets used to beat us with. Carbon dioxide levels going up, that’ll be farming. Methane in the air, that’ll be farming.
What about air travel and the production of cement. One presumes that the only thing they emit is unicorn tears?
If the media aren’t trying to persuade you that farming is not universally popular then the trade agreements that kept falling out of Liz Truss’ mouth most certainly would have done it. What better way to let someone know that they aren’t wanted than to invite their global competitors over and offer them no tariffs. Or even better, import OSR into this country which has been grown using pesticides that we have been told we can’t use.
Whether I’m being paranoid or just over-thinking things, it feels like we are being squeezed out, and the latest thing being drip fed into the conversation is re-wilding. Due to “modern farming practices” we have apparently ravaged the land for decades. The good news is that there are now firms who are offering you the chance to “sponsor” a 3 x 3 metre square of land to allow it to recover and let nature take it back… and only for £20! I’m not saying it’s a scam…but it reminds me of those people who bought a plot of the moon’s surface for £50 back in the 90s.
Apparently, we have ravaged the land for decades. Chris Packham says so, therefore it must be true. But “Big industry” has now realised that we have cottoned on to the fact that they churn out a fair bit of carbon and they need a way to offset that. The thought is that they might buy swathes of cheap land for that purpose and just let nature take its course. And here’s the rub, fertiliser at £700/t, glyphosate at £60/gallon and red diesel at 70p per litre, the cost of production seems to be going one way. Coupled with more farm businesses facing succession issues who could blame those who want to get out of it altogether and take the easy option.
The thing is, we won’t. When you are a farmer, there is no easy option.
My grandfather told my dad when he was a boy – “It’s not enough to like farming, you have to love it.” And that is still the case perhaps more today because at least back then people knew where their daily bread came from.
We live in a time where it has taken Jeremy Clarkson to make people aware of what we do and the challenges we face.
It’s not that people think that the UK doesn’t need farmers, it just they really don’t understand what we do.
I guess they shall have to wait for the second series of Clarkson’s Farm to explain things to them further!
Phil Garnham lives on the 300 acre family farm in South Norfolk with his wife Jen, and their two children. With his father, they run a min till operation growing wheat, OSR, peas and spring barley. For the past four years, his time has been spent between the farm and helping people pursue or further their career in agriculture, as a recruitment consultant.
Follw Phil on: @ag_recruiter
