Farm Diary: Minette Batters has a very difficult task

She took the job she said as someone else outside farming might take it, or Defra might decide not to do it at all. I don’t believe that for a minute, as jobs such as this are snapped up by members of the House of Lords if offered, and I am afraid she has taken on a very difficult task indeed and I look forward to seeing how able she and her team are in getting some answers and how honest she is prepared to be.

Her column was full criticism of Defra schemes and how the last Conservative government handled things, with a considerable underspend at Defra which had to be handed back to the Treasury, never to be seen again. This she attributed as one of the many downsides of leaving the EU without any coherent plan for farming. Brexit was a complete shock, practically no one expected it to happen, from our hapless Prime Minister at the time, David Cameron, to the appalling Boris Johnson and indeed, even Nigel Farage was surprised.

There was therefore no plan for the country, never mind a plan for farming which is a tiny consideration for any government at the best of times. It will be interesting to read the Brexit story once written in history after some time has passed. It brought chaos, it finished the Conservative Party as they fought each other, expelling any MP who was not a believer, and now have a long hard slog ahead as Nigel Farage offers them growing opposition.

Farmers voted for Brexit in the main, the NFU sat on its hands and did not even spell out what would likely follow, or the price farmers would pay. Weak leadership at a crucial time, and now a Labour government has hit farmers with inheritance taxes, lack of support, more expensive employment costs and higher minimum wages. No one has escaped, as the wealthy, Brexit supporting farmers will now not be able to pass on their farms to the next generation tax free.

Brexit is not over yet, as the latest panic is now about a trade deal with the USA which might just let in chlorinated chicken and hormone beef. The NFU is up in arms, the CLA too and the latest to join the ranks include Henry Dimbleby who was asked to write a food strategy for the last Conservative Government, made a decent job of it, and was ignored. He said that rural communities could be destroyed if the UK signs a trade deal with the USA which undercuts British farm standards.

Nigel Farage of course would let it all in, and if we had any faith in the British consumer, who we are told, prefer to buy British and demand higher standards, all would be well. But they don’t always, and we do know that consumers buy on price most of the time and pay lip service to higher welfare as it costs more. The wealthier consumers are more likely to look at standards, but again, they will trust M&S or Waitrose not to sell them anything else. Tesco, Asda, Morrison’s, Co-op, Aldi and Lidl are also trusted brands and would not sell anyone products that do not meet the minimum standards.

However, all of them import foods produced to different standards and food which cannot be produced here, some of which has dubious environmental credentials, for example avocados. Nothing wrong with that, but are we all aware of it? Consumers enter supermarket stores, where products are carefully laid out in a certain way, moved around periodically, so that most customers will come out having bought something different to their original intention and a few extras not on the original list. Nothing wrong with that either, but we should all be aware of it. When we visit the USA, Canada, Australia and many other countries, do we not eat chicken and beef? I think we do.

Ministers are redoubling efforts to expedite a deal, and there are fears that access might be granted as the US pressurises our government to weaken our SPS standards. Henry Dimbleby states that there is no point in creating a way of farming in this country which produces nutritious food, restores our environment, and has high level of animal welfare if we import food which is produced in ways that would be illegal over here. He added, you export those harms abroad, whilst destroying our rural communities.

Labour MP Clive Lewis and others are urging the government to align with the EU, rather than sacrifice standards in agriculture for a US trade deal. Too late for that now, as we are out of the EU and we cannot afford to turn our backs on the USA, and therefore we are in the invidious position of being alone, with potentially the worst outcome of all as a free trading nation, if Keir Starmer cannot pull off the challenging deal of keeping our alliance with both the EU and the USA. NFU President Tom Bradshaw is seriously concerned, whilst angry farmers threaten to bring fresh protests if such a deal goes ahead.

I find that I am becoming less tolerant of our country’s citizens each year. Whatever it is that happens or takes place, there is a huge hoo-ha about it, often without much justification, and usually out of self-interest. I am irritated by the lack of risk assessment and in particular the lack of ability to prioritise. We think that quite unimportant things in the scheme of things are a matter of life and death, or we ignore other things that are in fact very important. We localise, we protest at the drop of a hat, and worst of all we involve our children in these matters, rather than leaving them out of it.

Take the latest huge fuss over a tree outside a pub which has been given a severe pruning. We used to look at trees, assess them and harvest them, planting new ones in their place, but now we see them as sacred and part of our ecological and cultural heritage according to environmentalists, whilst importing timber from other countries without a care in the world. The irony is that this tree was severely pruned due to our obsession with Health and Safety; it was seen as dangerous. That of course trumps everything, apart from when it clashes with the new God, the environment. This tree described by some of the fanatics, even if decaying, is part of a tree’s life cycle, supporting important fungi and dead wood beetles. Give me strength!

Whilst there is a war raging in the Ukraine, another in the Middle East, Donald Trump creating havoc with tariffs, our government struggling to keep the country afloat, we worry about preserving fungi? What about our lack of an armed forces, our dire economy, listless workers, many who will not work at all, the cost of Net Zero which is being totally ignored and the dire state of our infrastructure and services? Does that not rank a little higher than fungus and dead wood beetles? No, of course not, silly me.