conservativerural action

As ever the farming and countryside organisations were strongly represented at the Conservative Party Conference and the various meetings and debates they held were inevitably both well attended and lively.

The only thing that flowed faster than the centenary beer at the NFU fringe meeting were the questions.

Having spent the vast majority of my life involved in agriculture, and with two sons in the industry, I understand the challenges farmers are facing.

The Conservatives recognise British farming’s crucial importance to our food security and to the vibrancy of our natural environment and rural communities. We want to help farmers raise production as we look to a future in which very rapidly there will be billions more mouths to feed. But as pressures on our natural resources grow we do not believe in production at any cost.

There can be no return to the days of the past, when Government encouraged intensive farming practices and the clearance of hedgerows and woodland. As I said in Manchester, the environment and food production is not an ‘either/or’. We need both. It is clean water, healthy soils and thriving biodiversity upon which our food security ultimately depends, and it is the job of Government to ensure that farmers are provided with the right kind of incentives to do what they do best: produce high quality food in harmony with the environment.

This is the season of agricultural shows so I am all over England visiting many of them.

Last week I was near Malvern for the Three Counties Show but wherever it is the story is similar: farmers who want to produce food for our tables but don’t believe the Government wants them to.

They point to mountains of red-tape, bovine TB out of control and prices which don’t leave much profit if any.

At the same shows there are impressive food halls where our own farmers and processors have developed superb products which show that British food is of the highest quality produced to some of the highest animal welfare standards in the world. The sad fact is that consumers can be deceived into believing they are buying British food when in fact they are not. A good British sausage may in fact contain imported pork.

Everyone I speak to, farmers and consumers, want that to change. Meat and meat products labelled as British must mean that the animal was born, reared and slaughtered here.

At Malvern I was asked to present some of the prizes for livestock, something I love doing. I learned stock-judging as a teenager but how today’s judges distinguish between really high grade cattle, sheep and pigs beats me.

Next week I am off to the Royal Norfolk Show and then the last ever Royal Show the following week. I know what they will all tell me, but I still need to hear it first hand.