New minister inherits farming in crisis

As Jim Paice licks his wounds on the back benches after being sacked as farm minister (and quickly given a compensatory knighthood), he could easily be forgiven for being a little bewildered about the reasons for his dismissal.

The fall from grace of his boss, DEFRA secretary Caroline Spelman, was always on the cards given her blunder over the proposed national forest “sell off” 20 months ago. But the unflashy Mr Paice had surely been a perfectly satisfactory farm minister – at least as far as his political masters were concerned.

The cursory manner of Mr Paice’s sacking, who has been a constant and loyal advocate of British farming throughout his political career, would appear to take some beating. On the day that the re-shuffle was announced he was attending the Livestock 2012 event at the Birmingham NEC.

But if Mr Paice, having learnt that Mrs Spelman had been sacked by the PM, thought that the NEC was a safe hiding place then he was sorely mistaken. No sooner had he told Farmers Weekly of his sorrow at Mrs Spelman’s departure and his “hope” of retaining “the only job in government I want and I hope I can keep it” than his phone rang and he was dismissed by the PM while still at the public event.

The next day, Mr Paice must have been equally hurt to hear the prime minister say in the House of Commons that “I want the agricultural department backing British food” as part of his justification for the reshuffle. All this after Mr Paice had only a few days earlier put the finishing touches to a voluntary dairy code of practice, having for months previously already been an important part of the public browbeating of dairy processors to halt or even reverse recent cuts in farmgate milk prices.

So what is Mr Paice’s replacement, David Heath, to make of it all?

Sir Jim was simply the victim of internal government politics

Unlike Mr Paice, he does not boast a farming background, but does come from a rural constituency and is therefore familiar with rural issues. Presumably, then, it will come as no shock to him to learn that he takes on his portfolio at a time of farming economic crisis. Increasing numbers of dairy, pork and poultry farmers have joined the sheep and beef sectors in the financial doldrums, their profits having been put under increased pressure by the recent rise in livestock feed prices.

In other words, with the exception of the few cereal growers who have had a good harvest in 2012, British agriculture is in real trouble and the UK’s already rising food trade deficit only looks like getting worse.

But why was Mr Paice sacked? Was it because the prime minister has come to realise the weaknesses and injustices of the proposed badger cull in England that Mr Paice had pushed so long and hard for? Was it that he wanted a farm minister to do something radical like push farm animal welfare much further up the political agenda? Or was it that he required his farm minister to argue in favour of a change in the current EU farm subsidy system that currently pays UK farmers £3bn a year in the form of the single farm payment, but which pushes up rents and land values much more than it encourages the production of food?

More likely, Sir Jim was simply the victim of internal government politics and the sharing out of jobs between the various political factions in this coalition government.

So, hold on to your hat, Mr Heath. Don’t get too attached to your brief. Oh, and whatever you do – back British food.

Stephen Carr runs an 800ha (1,950-acre) sheep, arable and beef farm on the South Downs near Eastbourne in partnership with his wife, Fizz. A third of the acreage is in conversion to organic status.

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