Trade deals and tree planting debated at Farmers Weekly Question Time

Issues surrounding trade deals, imports, and farming policy were debated in front of a full auditorium at the Royal Agricultural University (RAU) in Cirencester for the final Farmers Weekly Question Time of the series on 11 May.

The evening was chaired by FW’s podcast and projects editor Johann Tasker, and the panel included former Defra secretary George Eustice.

We’ve pulled together some of the best questions from the evening below and a recording of the event is available on the Farmers Weekly podcast.

Food imports

Does the panel think that the present government policy will reduce our reliance on food imports?

Tom MacMillan, who chairs rural policy at the Royal Agricultural University (RAU), said we don’t really have any sense of what the ambition is from government when it comes to food production and, while there are some good reasons for that, it also matters and is a problem.

Country Land and Business Association (CLA) president Mark Tufnell said the country was only 60% self-sufficient, so it has to import 40% of its food.

“I think what is intriguing about it, though, if you start to unpack that, we are 75% self-sufficient in the foods that we can actually grow in this country,” he said.

“The key part that I think the government really needs to focus on is the fruit and veg sector and the nut sector, where we are only about 14% self-sufficient,” he added.

Former Defra secretary George Eustice suggested that sometimes just focusing on the production-to-supply ratio can be misleading.

He said the most important thing is that we have profitable agriculture, because once it’s profitable, you will actually see agricultural outputs increase.

Being globally competitive is also key, added Mr Eustice. He said we shouldn’t talk ourselves down; UK agriculture is globally competitive in virtually every sector.

“The output that you have is a product of the profitability, and then if you factor in the fact that we’ve left the single market and there are some non-tariff barriers, we are likely over time to see some consolidation.”

Mr Eustice added that the government published its food strategy last June, setting out measures around technology and unlocking regulations on gene editing, so that the UK can become the leader in Europe on all of those new technologies.

Not all of the panel agreed with Mr Eustice about the current profitability in agriculture.

Hertfordshire farmer Jo Franklin said you’d be doing well to find an example of a profitable farmer, totally unsupported, in every sector.

Audience comment: Farmer Nigel Finch, who posed the question, didn’t think policy would reduce reliance on imports.

On his own farm – which makes yoghurts – costs had doubled and retailers were demanding such large orders that new entrants would struggle to get started.

Trade deals

George [Eustice], when you were in government, you were happy to allow the free-trade agreements in New Zealand and Australia to go through. Now you are not in government, you are on record as saying there were in fact a bad deal…

“The quid pro quo of taking a position in government is you argue furiously in private for what you want, but then you do accept and defend a collectively agreed position,” said Mr Eustice.

He told the audience he wasn’t happy with the trade agreements and argued ferociously against them. But he finally settled for the fact the rest of the cabinet were going to go forward with the agreement anyway.

“I know in my heart that I did what was right for British agriculture. Ministers are faced with a choice; do you flounce off or do you stay and try and change what you can?” he added.

“In the end, the settlement that I could extract from my government colleagues was that we would have a termination clause that any government could exercise in an unbridled way, just by giving six months’ notice at any time in the future should something go wrong.”

Mr Eustice said he acknowledged that was the best he was going to be able to get from the rest of his cabinet colleagues, so he decided to stay in post as there were lots of other important things to get right, such as TB policy, agriculture policy, and the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) trade deal.

Nick Allen, British Meat Processors Association’s chief executive, agreed that Mr Eustice was right to stay in position, but said that a fundamental problem with current trade deals is that the civil service is not used to working with industry.

“Civil servants didn’t come and ask us about it. One of our gripes with the Australian deal is that no one even considered or negotiated the sort of cuts that come here,” he said.

“The tonnage that has been given to Australia – if it came here as beef loins – would totally wipe out our beef loin trade in this country.

“It’s really important going forward that civil servants work closely with industry and, really, we haven’t got that culture in this country.”

Mr Allen said he thinks the fact that Mr Eustice has spoken out about the Australian and New Zealand trade deals since leaving the cabinet has influenced how the CPTPP was negotiated.

“We’re sensing that, actually, [the CPTPP deal] looks a lot better than the Australian and New Zealand deals, and there was a lot more consultation.”

A vote was held by the Question Time audience, and the majority raised their hand in favour of Mr Eustice’s decision to stay in post.

Food summit

What would you like to see in terms of outputs and agreed actions from the government’s Farm to Fork food summit on 16 May at 10 Downing Street?

Ms Franklin wanted clear direction about what is being asked of British farmers right now. “We all know food has to be cheap and that is of paramount importance to the vast majority of people in this country,” she said.

Mr Allen, who was invited to the summit, responded that the public are getting cheap food now – and they have had it for years.

“If you look across the world, in terms of the proportion of family income, we spend the least with the exception of the Americans.

“The people getting the fairest deal out of the supply chain are consumers and, somehow, we need to turn this round and get people to value food and understand that they do need to pay more for it,” he said.

Prof MacMillan’s view was that in the medium to long term, you can’t solve these things by making food cheaper. He said it doesn’t work – partly because the food industry is a massive employer.

Audience comment: Sophie Arguile, senior account manager in agriculture at NSF International, said all of the retailers have published their profits for the past 12 months and all have been higher than the five-year average.

Ms Arguile queried how government is working with organisations, such as the British Retail Consortium, to really look at how those supermarkets are working, because from both the consumer’s and farmer’s point of view, they seem to be the ones taking the profits.

Mr Eustice would like to see the horticulture strategy reinvigorated, as that is the area in the supply chain with the greatest vulnerability, and is where national resilience is weakest.

He would also like to see some work carried out around contracts, particularly for pigs and eggs.

“We created a power under the Agriculture Act for the government to regulate for fair dealing and transparency in markets, and we’ve done it in dairy already.”

He pointed out that in parts of the agricultural supply chain, the supply from farmers is quite fragmented and there are quite large processors in the middle.

“There’s a lack of clarity about whether increased payments – that might be coming from retailers down to those processors – are then following through in a timely fashion to the farmers who are producing the food,” added Mr Eustice.

Farming groups

Are there too many agricultural bodies?

There are too many different groups and it can be massively confusing, especially when operating across a number of different sectors, said Ms Franklin. 

From a knowledge exchange perspective, Prof MacMillan recognised it’s quite heavily fragmented and hard to know who is doing what and where to go to find something out. 

“Government can play a role in helping to bring together those conversations, saying here is what we need overall, who’s doing which bit, and helping that process,” he added.

Mr Tufnell said: “If you look at the space there is for lobbying organisations, it’s probably no bad thing that there are more than one.

“It’s probably best for government to be lobbied by a multitude of organisations and at least get some time in their diary. Otherwise, you end up with one body having total control over the voices put to it.”

Tree planting

How do we overcome the friction between tree planting and food production on productive farmland?

Environmental and rural commentator Rob Yorke said of course there is room for both trees and productive farmland.

“There are some cases where there is no need to plant new trees – you just need to manage existing hedgerows and trees better and actually improve the farming,” he said.

“There will be other times where the ground is so hard to farm to produce food that it is actually better to plant trees for lots of different uses.”

The Forestry Commission has a map of soil structures and land grades, and Mr Tufnell said they are not looking to target Grade 1 or 2 land for planting.

“The England Woodland Creation Offer has good capital money in it and good maintenance money,” he noted.

“It becomes an issue of land use – do you want to have a complete permanent change of land use if you’re up in the middle of Northumberland on some ground that’s not worth very much?

“You’re probably going to make more money with trees on it.”

The situation in Wales is completely different, according to Mr Tufnell. Under government proposals, all farm holdings in the country will need to have at least 10% tree cover to get any money from government.

“Wales has only got 6.5% tree cover at present; I don’t think on a holding-by-holding basis they are ever going to be able to do it,” he said.

Mr Eustice added that 35% of agricultural output comes from just 4% of the land, and sectors such as horticulture, pigs, and poultry use very little land.

At the other end of the scale, 20% of land produces just 3% of agricultural output.

Environment

Will the sentence handed to John Price for damage to the River Lugg act as a deterrent?

Mr Yorke conceded that it can be very hard to establish what the whole story is in these instances. 

“Farming, forestry, and aquaculture are at the front line of the environment, so it’s extremely hard to do your work without having an impact on the environment.

“Society as a whole needs to ask itself how hard it is to farm when the regulations are increasing, we demand food at an affordable price, but are not willing to change how we eat,” said Mr Yorke.

Mr Tufnell hopes the sentence will act as a deterrent, especially given prior warnings. 

“Most landowners are very concerned about the environment and most landowners are very concerned about meeting the requirements that we have looking after our wildlife and biodiversity at the same time as preventing flooding and producing food,” he said.