Kiwi conversation raises difficult questions
Assemble a group of 60 young ambitious farmers and industry professionals from Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the USA, Holland and the UK and you expect volatile discussion.
I recently hosted this year’s contemporary Nuffield Scholars group on my farm. We deliberated over the strength and weaknesses of UK farming through their eyes.
The Aussies wanted to know why we didn’t just shoot the bl***y badgers. Tongue-in-cheek maybe, but they couldn’t comprehend why NGOs wield so much influence in the UK.
“Keep your subsidies, you’re welcome to them,” those outside the EU agreed. “Support makes farmers inefficient and uncompetitive, and often farm services are duplicated as companies jostle to access the grants available to farmers.”
In 1987, New Zealand removed all farm subsidies. Twenty-five years on, they produce enough food to feed 20 million people and yet have a population of only four million.
With great candour, the Kiwis suggested that an overnight removal of subsidies, like they experienced, would be difficult in the UK. Not because we lack their backbone. Because the way New Zealand farmers responded to the removal of subsidies didn’t have to account for cross compliance and our environmental stewardship rules.
We talked of efficient farming models. Cow herds of one thousand or more accounted for 40% of USA dairying. Why was there so much opposition to large dairy herds in the UK?
We questioned the Australians. Was their farm business model of enduring five years of famine for one year of feast a “business” model? “Name any other country in the world where in a good year the profit from an acre of wheat could buy an acre of good quality land?” We couldn’t.
They scrutinised my business. Why didn’t my arable system operate on controlled traffic? Why on earth would you pay a trained fitter to remedy a faulty GPS unit? We should train up and do it ourselves. They were making me feel rather inadequate. Worse was to come.
I mentioned the drought. I know I shouldn’t have, but I did. These farmers were my guests and probably knew that they shouldn’t have laughed at me, but they did.
On his farm in South Australia, Robin’s annual rainfall is just over 200mm. He told me in no uncertain terms that what we are experiencing is not a drought. We just haven’t had much rain.
The Canadians remained quiet, recognising that their Great Lakes may be the greatest agricultural asset on the planet.
Apparently we suffer from a culture of seeking solutions in government handouts rather than rising to challenges. This mindset blunted our competitive edge.
The consensus was that UK farming was more heavily policed than the rest of the world, they sympathised. Less policing and no support was a better alternative. But is it that simple?
On a positive note, they regard our environmental stewardship as top drawer.
Would it be if it wasn’t for the CAP? They commended our communication and education campaigns, appreciating our challenge of communicating with a population that is more divorced from farming than any of their own consumers.
And then the penny dropped. Is it because the UK public are on average five generations removed from the land that our industry needs to be so transparent? Why NGOs have such influence and why removing the CAP isn’t straightforward?
Perhaps these countries have all of our challenges to look forward to.
Ian Pigott farms 700ha in Hertfordshire. The farm is a LEAF demonstration unit, with 130ha of organic arable. Ian is also the founder of Open Farm Sunday.
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