Farm Diary: Months for finer details on EU deal to emerge

The big news last week was the EU deal, the ‘reset’ as its being called. Whilst it will take months for the finer details to emerge, on balance it has been received in the farming world as a good move. The Prime Minister claims that this deal will make food cheaper, and Northern Ireland is the biggest beneficiary as this deal removes most of the routine checks and certificates in their dealings with Great Britain.

The farming unions are welcoming this move, paying tribute to the Government’s ambition to ease relations with our biggest trading block. We still need to see the fine print when it comes to genetics medicines, and many other things, but the British Meat Processors are excited by this as things have been very difficult for them since Brexit. AHDB the levy body is also excited, showing that non-tariff measures added 5-8% to meat exports and 2-5% in plant-based products to the EU. Interesting how bit by bit, we get to see what we already knew, which is what a terrible deal Boris Johnson and his crew struck with the EU, and the sheer cost of it to our country.

There are plenty of other issues of course which will need addressing, but it will all come out in the wash and whilst opposition carp on the sidelines and the media speculate wildly, no one knows the full picture as yet. The Prime Minister was right to pursue pragmatic ties with Brussels, of that there is no doubt, and he has the public on his side in this. Agriculture is a small part of this realignment, as defence, security, and immigration are much bigger. There is no doubt the Prime Minister thought he would get a better deal that this but faced the same unyielding reality in Europe and had to give as negotiations went to the wire. The EU has been resolute in maximising its position during and since Brexit, which should be expected; after all we were the ones that left.

I was disappointed to see Kemi Badenoch’s knee-jerk and childish response in her comment that this was an act of betrayal, trumped (pun intended) by Boris’ infantile comment on the deal. Kemi Badenoch’s problem is that the Tories have nothing to offer. It makes me wince to see them attacking the government on so many fronts and try to defend the mess they made of things over 14 years in government, it is frankly embarrassing. Their reputation is absolutely trashed following the chaos of Boris Johnson’s tenure and the catastrophe of Liz Truss.

I thought Kemi would be a good leader of the opposition, and we desperately need opposition to keep this government on its toes (it was Corbyn’s lack of creditable opposition which was partly to blame for the Tory chaos), but she is unable to connect. The Conservatives are obsessed with Reform and its flaky economic policies, dodgy candidates and a dessert of absent policies. While the grass root membership is looking for ways to ditch her (they want Boris back!), she must make her mark, and we cannot wait until 2027 for detailed policies.

There is an absence of the classic Tory approach to things, a re-set after the chaos, bringing the party back to traditional tax and spend, public services, law and order, defence and robust policies. Today the Conservatives are the fourth most popular party (behind the Liberal democrats for goodness’ sake) and have no significant role in our politics. The party needs to recognise that their path back to the front is to attract those on the left and not the right; they cannot out Farage, Farage.

The Environment Agency are claiming that farmers are polluting rivers due to the Inheritance Tax issue hampering their ability to focus on protecting habitat and wildlife. Utter poppycock! Whilst the IHT issue needs to be looked at again following the U-turn on winter fuel and is every bit as good a candidate for reversal if the government is minded, pollution is not as a result of this. Pollution is down to three things in the main, weather conditions, far more and better testing, and good management. The Water companies are by far the worst polluters, and it is important to point out that farmers do not pipe waste directly into water courses as they do; caught red (or should that be brown) handed.

Spreading solid muck is pretty easy and if it’s ploughed in, easier still, but it does enrich the soil (which is why we do it) and therefore soil leaching will contain enrichment, which with much more accurate testing is detected, but on a very small scale I would suggest. Slurry (liquid muck) and dirty water are the real challenges, and dairy and pig slurries are much more difficult to spread without them finding a drain or cracked soil in dry weather or surface runoff in wet weather. Most farms do not have adequate storage, with thin or non-existent margins making such expensive capital expenditure difficult or impossible.

Government grants still need co-funding, and many farmers struggle to do that, and the lack of adequate storage puts pressure on farmers to spread once capacity is full, regardless of weather. The closed periods, where spreading is not allowed despite good spreading weather and conditions quite often, but a green light on a certain date regardless of weather, are ridiculous. The dairy sector are the worst polluters according to the EA and I can easily believe this, as the testing and scrutiny has increased.

Dairy farmers also have large areas of concrete and all rainfall on that area needs to be stored and treated as dirty water, they have parlour washings, silage effluent and waste milk to dispose of too and this is a serious challenge. No doubt the increase in national insurance, fewer workers from abroad and minimum wage increase might mean that some farms will be short of labour causing problems, but the reality is that this is a very difficult area and it badly needs investment and better management on many farms.

As gangs and organised crime robbed us of £7 million over the last 5 years, in petrol station drive-offs, retailers say that since 2020 131,000 drive offs have been recorded with no police action. No attempt is made in most cases to even look at CCTV footage where number plates are clearly shown. Our food stores are robbed systematically with little police action and farm thefts are in the same category. This costs us all millions each year and one wonders these days what the police are for?

And then, when a one legged, 92-year-old wheelchair bound old people’s home resident in East Sussex, became very upset and had a knife, the police arrived. A full can of pepper-spray was emptied into the old boy’s face, he was then Tasered and hit with a truncheon! He later died in hospital 22 days later having contracted Covid. Many of us would much rather see the police take this sort of action against the thieving thugs who steal petrol, food, farm equipment and anything else they can get their hands on, but all we get is a crime number. It’s a strange world.