Peter Kendall on how the NFU is handling the disease crisis

The events of the summer have made for a testing time for all concerned, but what is the NFU doing to address the situation? Andrew Watts puts president, Peter Kendall, in the hot seat.

Farming is currently a case of those who “have” and those who “have not”. How does it feel to be in the first camp when so many of your members are in the other?

• Personally, I think it increases my level of responsibility. I’m very aware that I’m in the sectors that are doing well and without a shadow of a doubt I’m focused on the sectors doing less well. As soon as I learned that the Dairy Event was cancelled, I went up to the north of England to hear the concerns of members in that region. The strength of the NFU is that it represents all sectors of the industry and this opens doors at the highest level.

Certain sectors of the industry, specifically the pig and poultry, are on the brink of collapse. What are you doing to assist these?

• Only last Tuesday I met DEFRA secretary Hilary Benn and relayed the effects of foot-and-mouth restrictions on the pig sector and the need to introduce the type of supply chain agreements that have recently emerged in other sectors or we risk losing big chunks of the pig and poultry sector.

Currently, 70% of the pork we import is produced under systems that are illegal in the UK. We’ve relayed that to government as a criticism of over-regulation and to the retailers that unless we get sustainable prices, they risk losing the ability to make boasts about provenance and high standards of animal welfare. We could lose half the pig sector in the next year and the situation in the poultry sector is equally severe.

What are you doing to raise the prices supermarkets pay to farmers?

• If I can’t make the case for sustainable prices for farmers, then I think the Office of Fair Trading has got its priorities out of kilter. All I’m arguing is that it costs a price to produce a product and I should be able to articulate that clearly from any rostrum I choose and until I’m prevented from doing so or told that what I’m doing is illegal, I will continue to do so. If it costs 24p/litre to produce milk and research shows that the prices paid to farmers are unsustainable and that producers are leaving the sector in droves, I will say so. Arguing for sustainable prices is not collusion. And I will continue to explain that the consumer will be worse off because of volatility in the world market and the endless search for cheap food.
  

What positives can you take from the current position farming finds itself in?

• Take the milk sector, for example. At last year’s agm, this was the sector of the industry that we, as an organisation, were most concerned about and now the position is very different. Global tensions in milk supplies have led to a very rapid rise in prices. The changes across the market have been a really good signal: As farmers, what we produce is in demand and I take positives from that.

However, the livestock sector – and I take the dairy sector out of that – is probably the most despondent and desperate I have ever seen it because of the complexity of bluetongue, foot-and-mouth and escalating input prices, but it is a bizarre set of circumstances that has put it in that place. If we hadn’t had bluetongue and foot-and-mouth, we would be coming at this from a very different angle.

It’s difficult for me to always be positive in my messages about farming and be strong with government about what needs to be done to help us have strong, competitive agriculture when you have foot-and-mouth and farmers losing a large proportion of their yearly income. However, I do think what’s happened at Pirbright and some of the management of waterways and drains suggests we have taken our eye off the ball with regard to productive agriculture.

Are farmers better at dealing with crises now than, say, six years ago?

• I don’t think you can plan or protect a business against the sort of restrictions that are currently in place. I don’t see how you can protect yourself against the fall in market prices when you have to market your animals at a certain time because that’s when the animals have to come off the hills.

As an industry, are we better placed than in 2001? I think we are. If you look at the Surrey outbreak, three of the five farms to be culled were all doing local retailing and adding value or alternative business. This is an industry looking to get added value out of the wider market. I don’t think we are an industry looking to government for salvation, but for acceptance that this is a dynamic industry looking for new markets and opportunities. I think farming as an industry is better placed, but it is the least flexible farmers, those unable to pursue a range of enterprises, such as hill farmers, who are being hit hardest at this particular time. You have to recognise that the recent calls for support are against a backdrop of desperation in certain sectors of the livestock sector.

What has the NFU being doing to help these people?

• Without a shadow of a doubt, our biggest priority has been the unravelling of markets and exports. The lamb market is 30-35% oversupplied at this time of year and it’s important, therefore, that we get exports up and running and movement restrictions lifted. We have also been trying to get some sort of aid, but what’s on offer is disappointing and we need to do more. But we need to establish who is going to pay for this because we know DEFRA is short of money. I’ve also spoken to Lord Rooker (Junior DEFRA minister) about the continuing impact of the 20-day standstill rule.

What about other sectors – do recent events suggest the NFU has taken its eye off the ball?

• We do have a limited resource and I would like more members so we could afford more resource and more specialists in the individual sectors. If you look at the non-core work we are doing at the moment, such as the attention given to the Thematic Strategy on pesticides, I don’t see other organisations doing that.

David Richardson made a glib remark in his opinion piece in FW recently saying “we must be on the case”. After reading that, I asked one of our guys to contact him and tell him what we’re doing. The message that came back to me was that we actually briefed him before he wrote the article, but there was no mention of the NFU or the work it’s doing in his article. We’ve also had the UK MEPs who sit on the EU Environment Committee out on farm and Meurig Raymond has been briefing the MEPs on the latest issues. But we have finite resources and we have to prioritise.

Communication between the NFU and its members has been criticised in the past. What have you done to improve this?

• We’ve looked at better ways to communicate and we’ve made a big effort to improve things. The text message service has been criticised, but during foot-and-mouth, I feel it’s been a brilliant service. The website is updated more often and the newsletter has been improved and made punchier, so people receive a clearer indication of what’s going on. I don’t think our communication is perfect and feedback on communication is welcome. We’re open to ideas as to how things could be improved and I would gladly speak to anyone with an idea.

For various reasons, you’ve enjoyed quite a bit of media exposure recently. Do you feel public attitude has changed towards farmers during this time?

• It’s easier to do live broadcasts than recorded because they can’t be edited. Foot-and-mouth and bluetongue diseases are very serious issues for the industry and I have taken my responsibility there seriously, but I have tried to get the positive messages in and say that farmers are more self-reliant and take their responsibilities for the environment very seriously. If foot-and-mouth gives me the opportunity to say “buy British food” and promote our work as custodians of the countryside through the national media, then I’ll take that.

Do you feel Hilary Benn and Gordon Brown are men you can do business with?

• It’s my job to do business with them and I hope we will have a rewarding and fruitful relationship. That is why we invited Hilary Benn to Skipton market last week to enable him to see first-hand the difficulties facing the industry. In my meetings with Gordon Brown, he has gone to great lengths to emphasise his farming connections and childhood memories spent on his uncle’s farm in Dumfries.

What has been your best win to date with government?

• One of the good moments was at the NFU conference earlier this year when both David Miliband and Lord Rooker gave speeches that showed the attitude in government had moved on from that of Margaret Beckett.

It is my job to influence government and it was rewarding that both ministers took a positive and more upbeat view of farming, with an emphasis on the importance of productive agriculture and why farming needs to be more important in DEFRA. That’s a big win when you consider how far we’ve come from the previous incumbent.

At the same conference, I was quite robust with Sainsbury’s chief executive Justin King and his comments about fair prices for farmers and the need to develop the relationships that achieve this, and not just talk the talk.