We Seem to Be Going From Bad to Worse

Almost three years into the reform of the Common Agricultural Policy and we seem to be going from bad to worse.

Defra still cannot manage to do what seems to come naturally to all other EU states, which is to pay farmers their Single Payment on time. Meanwhile it is more than ready to slice increasing chunks off the cheque in modulation claiming environmental benefits for farmers when in fact the real recipients of this money are the plethora of “agents” (in whatever guise they take) who fill in the forms for ever-more complicated schemes.

At the same time prime cattle and lamb prices are being forced down.

Farmers could rightly have expected a recognition from the rest of the food chain that with the reduction in support better prices would be needed to guarantee home supply.

Instead, our share of the retail price gets less year-on-year as we are squeezed at the bottom of the chain.

Despite being a rich western society, this country operates a cheap food culture that refuses to pay the farmer a sustainable price, allows dominant retailers to turn in huge profits and is sanctioned by government because it helps to keep inflation low.

When we expected prices to rise, they have dropped – the suspicion being that more Irish product has been brought in to suppress the price. And store cattle producers who claim to be getting a buoyant trade need to sharpen their pencils and work out how much of their Single Payment they are investing in their cattle – as the cost of production continues to increase and prices remain well short of the trade 11 years ago. Store cattle are not too dear – fat cattle are too cheap!

The sheep sector is even worse. Spring lamb at 110p/kg is a financial disaster for those who are producing it and it seems that this is the result of the retailers, who seem determined not to pay last spring’s hogget prices, undermining the market with New Zealand product.

We should challenge the New Zealand exporters (who are also driving down the price of lamb in their own country) and make it clear that we are not prepared to see our market undermined. The quota that New Zealand has to export into the EU needs to be examined and we must also challenge the retailers on the standards of farm assurance that come with this product.

We must start to make farm assurance work for us, otherwise we only increase our costs. Sheep farmers must also take care not to talk down the market for the coming season. New Zealand has already exported more of its quota to the EU so that leaves less for the months ahead and there is no reason why we should not have a similar trade to last year through the summer and into the autumn.

We must also stop assuming that less sheep will mean a better price, I don’t believe it will. Ten years ago we had five million more breeding ewes and a very good trade.We are not self sufficient in lamb and if we reduce production it will make the supermarkets more reliant on imports, something which just may have occurred to those importing the New Zealand product.

We should be proud of our industry and be determined to achieve the price we need to sustain it – and farmers must do it for themselves.

The National Livestock Board is about to launch an awareness campaign to highlight the need for higher farmgate prices. The aim is to mirror some of the success the dairy sector has had, but we need your support. Members of the National and Regional Livestock boards will be on the NFU stand at the NSA’s North Sheep Event at Hanging Wells on June 6. Take the opportunity to come along and challenge your livestock delegates and find out what the NFU is doing or what you consider we should be doing. I hope to see you there for a lively debate.

Malcolm Corbett is a Rochester farmer and chairman of the North- East Regional Livestock Board.

(c) 2007 The Journal – Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.