David's Digest

Kevin Spacey, the artistic director of the Old Vic theatre, complains that by featuring programmes such as "Any Dream Will Do" to select a leading lady for "The Sound of Music" and "I'd do Anything" to find an actress to play Nancy in "Oliver" is giving an unfair advantage to the musical theatre. "When are they going to run a talent competition for a play?" he asks.

I know how he feels. I've been thinking for years that the BBC gives an unfair advantage to organic farming compared with responsible conventional food production. Organic represents about 3% of UK production and probably 5% to 7% of consumption. But if you took the media as your guide you might think it accounted for more than 80% to 90% of what we eat in this country. The vast majority of our home produced daily food seldom gets a mention these days, even on so called farming programmes.

The truth is that producers follow their own likes and dislikes. In terms of entertainment this means majoring on what is likely to attract the biggest audience. When it comes to food, producers are selected by middle class food snobs who choose people like themselves to run programmes. It's surprising, perhaps, that despite their efforts, organic remains a tiny minority.

Don't get me wrong, I love musicals and enjoy the programmes Kevin Spacey complains about. I am, on occasions happy to eat organic food because I don't think it does me any harm - except financially. But don't expect representative balance from the BBC. They don't do that any more.

Last weekend wasn't up to much farming wise. The snow stopped us finishing drilling the last of our sugar beet and it was too cold for the seeds to germinate in any case. But to be honest I didn't spend too much time worrying about it.

My wife, Lorna, and I went to Gloucestershire for the weekend. The main reason was to attend the golden wedding anniversary of some old friends and that turned out to be an excellent party with great speeches and delicious food. Indeed the whole weekend was a gourmet's delight.

At the wedding anniversary we ate roast beef finished on the familys' own farm followed by, among other things, a wonderful selection of English cheeses. And I'll let you into a secret - it all took place at the home of Suzie Paton, FW Farmlife columnist, the daughter-in- law of the couple whose wedding we were celebrating.

On the way there we called in at the Elvedon Estate near Thetford, owned by Lord Iveagh, for a snack lunch in the restaurant he's set up there as part of a rural shopping complex in some old farm buildings. The food isn't cheap but boy is it good quality, like the rest of the development. Lorna says it reminds her of the Chatsworth House shopping and eating experience and its virtually all home produced. In any event I had one of the best bowls of soup and crusty bread I had ever tasted. And that was lunch.

The Chief Executive of Carrefour, the French based retailer that claims to be the second biggest in the world (after Walmart) said at the World Retail Congress in Barcelona that the retail industry is facing its most significant challenges for a generation.

Jose Luis Duran, for it was he, pointed to cost inflation in commodities and the resulting inflation in selling prices as particularly difficult issues. "There is volatility and confusion", he is quoted as saying. "Confusion for our team, confusion for our customers and confusion for our business partners." Carrefour has an annual turnover turnover of some Euro102bill.

Well, M. Duran, join the club. That's what its been like for your farmer suppliers for several years. Some of them have squeezed out costs in order to continue supplying you at lower and lower prices. Others have been forced out of business by the unremitting pressure you and your kind have placed them under. Moreover, the fact that many producers have gone is one of the reasons for the shortage in the market place and the higher prices you now have to pay.

I take no pleasure in pointing these things out. For I am aware that you and other powerful retailers will simply increase your pressure on suppliers in order to maintain your margins. But I hope even you in your exalted position will now realise how it feels when, as you put it "costs grow faster than prices". We farmers know it well.

We managed to get the last of this years sugar beet drilled yesterday afternoon. I was thankful because the forecast for today was terrible (as it happened it didn't rain until mid afternoon) and it is long past the date when they should be in the ground. Indeed beet crops are said to loose 3t/ha every week that drilling is delayed beyond April 10th. And the longer growing season you can give them the higher the potential yield.

That said, those crops that were put in in February and early March are not looking too good by all accounts. The frost and snow over Easter were just what they didn't need and plant stands have been adversely affected - partly by the weather and partly by predators, like skylarks, pigeons and mice.

The worrying thing for British Sugar is that many growers vowed after last years poor yields and low prices that they would give the crop one more chance before deciding whether to stop growing. In other words, if they got a good yield this year (over 70t/ha was the implication) they might carry on. If not, they would take the EU compensation for not growing beet and change to oil seed rape or some other break crop.

Well, prospects already look less than rosy for this year because of late drilling problems and I suspect a lot of growers are thinking this might be their last crop of beet. Its a pity because most farmers enjoy growing them. But not when wheat and rape are so much easier and now more profitable.

Motor fuel from farm crops was once the great white hope of UK cereal and oil seed rape growers. At the time the price of wheat was about £60/tonne and the illusion of plentiful supplies for ever more was widespread and believed by the chattering classes. The NFU, the government, the EU and agribusiness thought it was a good idea too and the concept of a compulsory inclusion of 2.5% of bio-fuel in petrol and deisel was born.

Sadly, now bio-fuel inclusion day has arrived, the picture has changed. Wheat is worth rather more than it was, as is oil seed rape, and it has, in any case, suddenly become public knowledge that much of the bio-fuel that is available at the pumps is derived from imported palm oil and soya. Add to that the fact that the balance between energy gained and that expended is said to be marginal in some cases and the current hostility to bio-fuels and the RTFO was predictable.

What made it inevitable was the rising price of food. Consumers, prompted by the media, have quickly realised that commodities diverted to make fuel were significant in raising the price of food in the shops and the scene was set for a negative reaction. And bodies that might have been expected to support green energy a few years ago have suddenly become vociferous in their opposition.

How quickly things change. How fickle is public opinion. How predictable that when costs rise to support vital supplies consumers always favour the cheapest option, whatever they may say they really believe.

If ever there was a time for all who claim to care about the welfare of poor people to unite around a policy to provide them with enough to eat it is surely now. According to the World Bank 33 countries around the world face unrest because of reductions in the availability and sharp increases in the cost of food.

But the International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development report, five years in the making and out today, appears to have split the world scientific community down the middle. On the one hand is the official report that bends over backwards to accommodate the bright green, pro organic and politically correct views of some of those who contributed to it. On the other is the minority version written by those representing agri-business which states categorically that GM should have been included as the greatest hope for mankind.

So, we have a classical division between politics, science and commerce. Actually it may not be quite as extreme in reality as some sectors of the media have portrayed it. I heard Prof Bob Watson, Defra's Chief Scientist, who chaired the group, say on the radio this morning that he did not reject GM but believed more could still be achieved by conventional plant breeding. Which doesn't sound unreasonable.

Next Tuesday evening BBC Three will screen a programme it made in the sweat shops of India. It features a group of British girls who had been in the habit of buying cheap fashions made in the sweat shops of India, China and other low wage countries in Asia, wearing them once and then discarding them. The programme arranged for the extravagant girls to work and live for a month in those sweat shops alongside the locals and to receive the same pay.

Suffice to say the girls were appalled at what they experienced and have returned to Britain vowing never to buy cheap fashion items again. They had not realised what goes on in the name of cutting prices of the things they previously bought in this countrys' High Streets and now they do they no longer wish to benefit from it.

In my travels around the world I have seen similar exploitation of labour on farms. Often the produce of those farms is exported to supermarkets in this country. Those who do such work are seldom able, given the minimal wages they receive, to afford the produce they help to grow and pack. But western consumers buy it at low prices without a thought for the welfare of those who make it possible. To be fair most are not even aware of the exploitation involved.

It occurs to me that a similar TV programme featuring British consumers working alongside Third World farm workers might persuade them and perhaps viewers to stop taking cheap food for granted. Until something like that happens the people of this country will continue to buy as cheaply as possible, incurring more and more food miles and later tip a lot of it into the waste bin.

Five years ago a Norfolk based exhibition company decided there was a gap in the market for a game and countryside event in East Anglia. They approached the Royal Norfolk Agricultural Association with a view to hiring its showground for a spring weekend. A deal was done and the first East Anglian Game and Country Fair was held.

It was a great success and the decision was made to hold it annually. Five years on and the organisers are confidently expecting a crowd of over 40,000 at the showground during the two day fair next Saturday and Sunday.

In fact it has almost become a mini Norfolk Show with more than 300 trade stands featuring all aspects of country life, shooting, fishing, fly casting, clay pigeon shooting, duck driving with sheepdogs, falconry and so on.

There will be entertainment in the main arena, including parachute jumping, horse logging and many other activities to amuse the crowd. And this year local food is being featured as well with some of East Anglia's top chefs in attendance.

It's been a hard winter and spring is not proving much easier. I reckon I deserve an enjoyable day out among people I like and I certainly intend to have a wander round to update myself on the latest in country sports. Doubtless I shall also meet lots of old friends who I haven't seen for ages. It will be worth the effort for that alone. Maybe I'll see you there too.

I am indebted to a couple of correspondents to the Daily Telegraph for the following.

They were responding to reports of unprecedented increases in food prices. Catherine Spencer of Warminster, Wilts, who is an egg producer, said she had watched free range egg prices in supermarkets rise by 83p/doz over the last twelve months. As a producer of free range eggs she had only received an extra 16p/doz over the same period. She wondered what had happened to the 67p difference.

Dr Kieth Ray of Marlow in Buckinghamshire pointed out that while the price of a loaf of bread had increased by 15% because, according to retailers, "the price of wheat has doubled". But Dr Ray, who has spent 30 years in the food industry and knows how much wheat is used to make a loaf, calculated that a doubling in the price of wheat equated to around 7%, not 15%.

He too suggested that someone in the production and marketing chain was taking advantage of current headlines about food shortages and higher commodity prices to make a lot of money.

Who could that possibly be?

Earlier this week I went, with a group of LEAF farmers on a course, to Grimsby fish market. To our unpracticed eyes it all seemed rather chaotic as autioneers and buyers in the harbourside shed crowded round the boxes of fish. There were cod, haddock, place, one enormous halibut and red fish whose name I never caught. But the white coated insiders knew exactly what they were doing - just as we farmers would at a cattle or sheep market.

But the saddest thing we learned was that whereas fifty years ago hundreds of trawlers were based there, these days only about twenty fishing boats work out of Grimsby. Between them they account for about ten percent of all the fish handled through the port. The other 90% are imported from Iceland, Norway and the Faroes. That said, Grimsby facilities and expertise are still used to process 70% of the fish consumed in this country. Its just that most are caught in Icelandic waters instead of the North Sea, landed at Reykjavik, then trans-shipped to Grimsby for the UK market. Among other things it means most of the "fresh" fish we eat in this country will have been caught at least a week previously.

The decline of this once prosperous port has been brought about, we were told, more by misguided EU quota regulations together with the waste of fish caused by fishermen having to discard all undersized fish they catch because they are not allowed to land them than by over fishing. And all around the coast the UK fleet has been decimated in the same way and for the same reasons.

We farmers felt their pain and hoped fervently that our industry would not be similarly destroyed by regulations written by uninformed bureacrats who had never set foot on a fishing boat or a farm. But we recognised the parallels and were not at all complacent as we left the sad run down town.