Newspaper focuses on farmers problems

16 October 1998

Newspaper focuses on farmers problems

by FWi staff

The Daily Telegraph reports on the prospects for an emergency aid package in the last of its special reports on the crisis in farming.

Agriculture minister Nick Brown told the paper he is “sympathetic” to requests from farmers leaders to a package of measures that would ease the most urgent problems affecting livestock farmers.

Mr Brown said: “I am talking with others in the government about what can be done to help”.

But he declined to mention specific proposals and reiterated that any help would have to meet with approval from the Treasury.

Mr Brown also repeated his commitment to investigate claims that supermarkets were profiteering at the expense of the farmer and consumer.

The newspaper also reports from Wales where a pilot scheme is being carried out in which farmers are paid to lay hedges and manage grazing marshes.