DAVID RICHARDSON
DAVID RICHARDSON
How can farming be
seen in a positive light
by the public when the
BBC states that a
doctors intimate
relationship with a lady
vicar forms part of its
agriculture output?
THE way the popular media treats farming is even more crucial in creating public opinion than the pronouncements of ministers at DEFRA. Certainly in this spin-laden society the media ultimately controls the agenda, whether the politicians like it or not. Witness the Queen Mothers funeral/Black Rod affair.
So it is with farming stories. If they do not fit the editors prejudices they may not be written. If they are reported the opinions of the writer are uppermost. And some are even prepared to use farcical fiction and drama as well as their columns to influence opinion. Witness the recent TV mini- series Fields of Gold, co-written by Alan Rusbridger, editor of The Guardian.
A BBC that allows such a programme to be made and transmitted is a very different organisation to the one I joined as a freelance in 1962. In those days, the UK was divided into eight broadcasting regions. Each had a specialist producer to make farming programmes relevant to that region. Almost all had degrees in agriculture. Most national and regional newspapers had farming correspondents with similar qualifications. The ration book was still a recent memory and anything the media could do to increase home food production, improve food security and help the balance of payments was considered worthwhile.
But perceptions have changed and so has the BBC. Much of todays curtailed farming coverage is put out so early in the morning that only night workers and insomniacs like me listen to it. Some of the producers and presenters have knowledge of the industry, but their priorities, dictated from above, now lie with the consumers rather than the producers of food. That is not intrinsically bad, for customers are vital to any business. But when unsympathetic presenters on general programmes put their spin on conventional farming stories they almost always end up following the path of political correctness, which is to condemn most of what we do.
This also leads to a situation in which criticising the BBC for its coverage of farming only results in a response from the corporation that our industry still has greater coverage than any other. Whether such a claim can be justified I do not know. Suffice to say that within it The Archers is classified as a farming programme.
I dont know if you are up to date with Brian Aldridges affair with the Ambridge doctors wife; the doctors intimate relationship with the lady vicar; or the vet who has been selling hard drugs on the side. If you are not you may wonder how these story lines fit in to a so-called farming programme. But I assure you there is more of that kind of thing than there is of milking cows and making silage. Perhaps it attracts listeners, but is it a fair representation of rural life?
It was just such concerns that persuaded Anthony Parkin to resign from the post of agricultural story editor of The Archers after 25 years in the job. Mr Parkin was at one time one of the BBCs farming producers and I made many programmes with him through the 1960s and 70s. Now in his 70s, he has been immersed in farming most of his life and he did his best to ensure the industry and the life he knew and loved were reflected in The Archers scripts. He loved the job and it was only the plan to introduce story lines even more outrageous than those above that persuaded him to leave. His principles would not allow him to stay.
Now hes written a book about it. Entitled Humbridge: An Everyday Story of Scriptwriting Folk, it is, in fact, a novel rather than a personal account and readers are told "all the characters are imaginary". But the name of the fictional village in which the radio soap opera takes place is clearly not an accident. And it does not take much imagination to conclude that some parts of the book were inspired by Mr Parkins own experiences in The Archers script conferences.
Its a good read and provides insights into the forces at work in the media. The main characters are a scriptwriter for the soap who moves to a village to improve his understanding of rural life and his producer, a formidable feminist with politically correct tendencies. At one point the unassuming scriptwriter in an uncharacteristic outburst accuses his boss of creating "a suburban village dominated by urban attitudes and values" and of attempting "social engineering". Could this also apply to The Archers?
The sad thing is that those in authority over us at DEFRA probably derive more of their opinions from The Archers than from real farmers. These days there is no government controlled ADAS with qualified and experienced officers to feed into and eventually run MAFF. Nor is DEFRA son of MAFF, whatever we might like to believe. It is a new ministry whose civil servants have been drawn from a range of government departments and have little or no specialist knowledge of the industry over which they preside. The perceptions they derive from The Archers may be more important than we know.
• Humbridge, by Anthony Parkin, is published by Polperro Heritage Press, price £8.95.