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JCB speaks out on production - Jane King's blog

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JCB speaks out on production

I've received an interesting letter today from Anthony Bamford, chairman of JCB - the only remaining British manufacturer of tractors.  It is the same letter he has sent the Financial Times and DEFRA and its calling for Government to announce clear actions to support British farmers and help them boost production.

Sir Anthony is currently in South America on business otherwise I would have liked to have developed this further with him today.  But we will certainly be running this story on the website and in the magazine coming out Friday.

His gripe is that since Labour came to power in 1997, Britain's food self sufficiency has reduced to 60% and, in his words, "DEFRA remain indifferent" about it.  The JCB chief is worried about billions of unnecessary food miles being clocked up as we import indigenous foods such as potatoes, apples and sugar, causing congestion, road infrastructure costs, pollution and greenhouse gas emissions.  

He complains the strong support that used to exist for farming has shifted to a focus on rural affairs.  Yet the agri food sector accounts for 6.9% of the total economy and provides 3.6 million jobs which, incidentally is more than four times as many as the UK car industry.  According to Sir Anthony, the agri sector could generate even more revenue and jobs if DEFRA did its job.

The letter finishes with the following:

"British farmers are some of the most productive in the world - Mr Benn should immediately announce clear actions that support them in boosting production, and make 100% indigenous food self sufficiency a priority."

Don't know about you, but I was pretty impressed that the chairman of a business so troubled by the current economic downturn in the construction market should take the time to back Britain's farmers.  But then why should I be that surprised?  It turns out Sir Anthony is also a farmer himself..................

 

   

Published 20 January 2009 09:38 by Jane King | [Edit Post]

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Comments

# re: JCB speaks out on production@ 20 January 2009 19:40

goverment wont do anything until it hits them in the face and stamps all over them .just look at the banking crisis by the time they realised there was problems they and us taxpayers are up the caebosh[in ***] the same will happen with food you and i can see it, but goverment no way until we have seen food shortages then look out , joe public will be up in arms and dont realise cant just turn tap back on and produce food tomorrow cos we farmers now it will take years. shame we didnt have business men/women in goverment.

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juice

# re: JCB speaks out on production@ 21 January 2009 09:31

One of the hallmarks of politics in recent years, particularly the Labour Government, has been to bring in more business people to advise on policy.  I have to say, I don't think they've made much of an impact so far, although they should come in to their own in helping the politicians understand better the crisis for business with this downturn.  

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Jane King

# re: JCB speaks out on production@ 21 January 2009 09:46

In response to Sir Anthony's very timely comments, and his call for DEFRA to announce clear actions to support a boost in home production. DEFRA alone cannot address the depth and breadth of issues facing the food and farming sector. At a time when we are facing massive challenges with reference to the economy we should be looking even harder at other areas of great weakness.

The UK Food and Farming sector is one of those areas of weakness which continues to weaken year on year. Considering how pivotal food and farming is to everyone’s daily activities this is not a good scenario as a food and farming crunch might be even more devastating than the credit crunch and might be even to harder to fix, we should therefore prevent it.

Farmers and growers are the building blocks of a sustainable food and farming industry and we should start there. Many good initiatives have been launched since The Curry Report was published in 2002 however many of these have now become tired and the sector really does need a shake up.

A new initiative – namely The Food and More Project is presently working towards putting the Food and Farming sector into that pivotal position. The Project has an application in process with the South East England Development Agency (SEEDA) to part fund a £400k Business Plan with the intention to start building processing, distribution and retail sites in 2010. The core of the Project will be food and “the more” being related intrinsically linked agendas.  The Project’s building blocks / foundations will be farmers and growers. The Project will work to Social Enterprise principles and will be a collaborative venture which enables economies of scale to strip out waste and replication, and shorten the length of the chain from producer to consumer in a truly economically viable and sustainable manner.

www.thefoodandmoreproject.com

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ian-foodandmore

# re: JCB speaks out on production@ 22 January 2009 13:50

I like the sound of the Food and More Project Ian.  We need to follow this through and I will get our business desk to chase it up. Can you contact our business editor ian Ashbridge?.

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Jane King

# re: JCB speaks out on production@ 24 January 2009 15:32

The trouble is we are preaching to the converted here.  We all know what the problems of the industry are, I've mentioned them in my blogs often enough.  It needs a programme of education which is not going to be an overnight success, but then that is another problem that has got us into this current mess.  Investment needs to be slow and consistent to provide long term stable results.  

Unfortunately there is one, possibly two generations that have lost out to this message and it is going to take a lot of hard work to remedy that.  However with purse strings tight in a recession, local, good, provenent food at a sensible price will tease customers away from the supermarkets and slowly release the strangle hold that they the supermarkets hold.

That's my plan anyway.

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viewfromtheothersideofthefence

# re: JCB speaks out on production@ 01 March 2009 01:30

There's a serious problem with the statement that

"Britain's food self sufficiency has reduced to 60%".  

That 60% "self-sufficiency" is only being achieved thanks to huge inputs of oil to power machinery, and natural gas to produce fertilisers (and also herbicides and pesticides).  Not so long ago the uk was an exporter of oil and gas, but now it is transitioning sharply into being an importer.  

At the same time most of the other countries of the world are transitioning to being importers, because the cheap oil and gas has been used up and only the increasingly arduous resources remain.  Russia can't afford to produce oil at the current prices and is in economic crisis as a result.

And it isn't possible for everyone to become an importer.  Producer nations will hoard their supplies and the uk will be increasingly struggling with high-priced oil and limited supply.  When all those oil-powered ag machines grind to a halt, what will that 60% change to then?  Six percent?  The food crunch is going to make the credit crunch look like the proverbial picnic!

By the way, what does 60% of food mean?  60% of protein?  Of calories?  How many apples equals a burger?  Is there some soundly-based formula for calculating the 60% figure?

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robinpc