I want to pick up on a few other bits. The first one and you touched Ben about climate change, and I think climate change is a really interesting one. I think it could potentially be the biggest threat to agriculture. Not only are we a significant influencer of climate change, we are at the front and centre of what happens with climate change, but I also see that as an opportunity, and I particularly like to touch on water. It is something that potentially is a huge threat, we have arguably at times, we all know recently we've had too much water, other times we've had too little water. Often it's in the wrong place, but actually the biggest opportunity for British agriculture going forward potentially is that we do at least have access to fresh water, something that can't be said for many, many big agricultural economies around the world where actually even urban areas are short of water, before we look at using it for agriculture.
I think some of the other areas are, I think when we have times of change and Brexit, climate change and COVID to an extent as well are all things that are forcing us, and forcing every farm business, to think about the future and think about where do we want to be? It's something we've done on our own farm at home and I know lots of others have and times have changed. Give us that opportunity to think about what is it that we want to achieve? How do we look at our business? How do we drive productivity improvements? Efficiency improvements? How do we look at what the customer wants and therefore I think this does give us an opportunity?
(George Freeman MP)
Thank you and thanks for pulling this initiative together. Look, I want to highlight sort of three challenges and real opportunities. The first challenge is just change, the scale of the change that we're all facing. Change is difficult. It's really challenging to all of us. None of us like it. I mean, some of us pretend we like it, but in the end it is actually very challenging, and I just think it is exciting that this is a 1947 moment. It's a massive change in the way we support agriculture and the way we view it. Um, but that is also pretty frightening actually, and works just acknowledging the scale of that. Secondly, I think the Brexit and the trade debates going on in Parliament. It's a huge risk for the industry and it is deeply worrying, and I think.
It's no surprise that we're seeing levels of anxiety and concern at a personal and institutional level at the level that we are. I happen to think if we get it right, it's a huge opportunity that I'll come to that it is right now a massive challenge, and we're asking people to invest long term to think long term. When the framework on January the 1st is not clear. And this industry has tended to respond really well to long-term frameworks of support, and it hasn't got that at the moment, and that's very worrying. Thirdly I think there's something about optimism and pessimism, and powerlessness and isolation. Now these are sort of difficult concepts, but I think there's something I've seen over the course of my lifetime from being a boy working on farms to going into thinking about a career in farm management and then working with the industry from one step with the move I've watched an industry go from, back in the 70s when I grew up, an industry that knew its place that new its role. It was production, production, production. It was a sort of special industry, wasn't necessarily particularly popular institutionally, but it knew it had to do it, knew how to do it, and he knew the rules and it got on with it. I think it's now going through a stage where its status as an industry in the national economy and in the national conversation is in flux. The old support structures are crumbling, new ones are being created, but it's not quite clear how they work. I think there's a sense that people expect more and more and more of farming and of farmers and yet the support network is less and that that's pretty frightening actually when people expect more of you, but you don't feel able to know how to deliver it.
And I think all of that is compounded by the isolation of the job. You know, sitting on a tractor, drilling an 80 acre field you get a lot of time to think about stuff and a lot of time to listen to the radio and kind of tap into the national zeitgeist of an increasingly angry public discourse, and it's not very reassuring. So, I think there's something very challenging in there, and I think that explains the terrible statistics that you highlighted of a farmer taking their own life once a week, and that is a silent epidemic of a crisis of optimism and it's interesting that the Samaritans, who know a thing or two about connecting and reaching out, you know their opening question is, are you feeling powerless? Are you feeling out of control? It goes right to the heart of the human psyche, and I think in quite a deep way the industry feels like it's not in control of its own destiny at the moment. And I just Lastly, I know it's a fourth point, but I think regulation, there's something the farmers and growers that I speak to feel that all of this is manifest in this sort of bombardment of vertical siloed in regulation from different quangos with no joined up sense that this is a, in the end, one farmer, it often is one that's gotta kind of make sense of it all and deliver for everybody and that that contributes to a sense that nobody values what we're doing. Um, that's pretty depressing, but there are some really good opportunities as well, and I think if we get the trade framework right.
Um, and we'll probably talk about this, but I genuinely think an opportunity for us to say we will enshrine UK standards of production. This is finally the level playing field opportunity we will wanted, and we won't give free tariffs to anybody and everybody from Brazil and Australia and America to dump in the UK. Pre tariff is a prize we give to people who are producing at the higher standards like us and I think we could, we could really fly the flag for British standards which would support our exports and our innovation. And the second big opportunity, you won't be surprised to hear me say this is in technology and innovation and the reason I led the aggrotech industrial strategy was partly because it's a huge opportunity economically for the UK. But also I think it's an opportunity for the industry to demonstrate it's on the cutting edge of, you know, low plastic, low energy, low input, high output, smart, clean, green modern farming, satellite guided, precision drilling. All of that stuff, which is key to third point, people seeing farming as a solution to climate change a solution to energy a solution to the big challenges on water on air or habitat. The last opportunity I would really flag is that I think there's a new generation. Of both consumers of food and people interested in farming and it's very interesting if you go to Borough Market in London, the first time I went, I thought I was gonna walk into a sort of place where the sort of Hoxton hipster sort of London, the easily assumed prejudice about the countryside and farming and it's fascinating at the heart of the city there's a celebration of you know farm shop deer, venison from the farm source and provenance there's a real interest in today's consumers. They're not squeamish, they're very worried, I think about factory, about a disconnection about not knowing about where provenance has come, and that, harnessed well is a great horse for our industry, and similarly, I'm seeing a new generation of people coming in, and I, in Norfolk, I run a little project called the Norfolk way.
We brought together 7 leaders of tomorrow's industries and so Agritech and farming, we've got Rosie Beg who’s just taken over one of the black currant farms from her family. She's a brilliant spokesman for the industry she's come in new, she posts on social media. She's making Ribena and they're turning the farm into a diverse habitat, a glamping location bringing people in, and I think this combination of new young talent and the new generation of consumers and technology provides some really interesting opportunity. Farming will go from being what it was when I grew up. A slightly lonely but sort of stable industry that produced and produced, and gradually the public fell out of love with it, to an industry that people see is at the heart of what they most love. Bees, hedges, food, landscape, air, water, healthy living. So I'm optimistic, but I do think that to tackle the loneliness we've gotta make that opportunity feel true and we've got to build better networks and make sure that people see our farms not as lonely, isolated machines of profit behind a big hedge. But as the embodiment of the things that most people, most families most love about living in this country.
(Chris Hill)
I think the point about public perception is an important one and is possibly one of the few positives that we can gleam from all this. But I would just like to pick up on a previous point as a lot of this discussion has focussed on Marco issues and industry wide discussions but I would just like to raise one point about individual decision making on individual farms and it comes back to the point that Mr Freeman raised about his sense of powerlessness. I think given that here we are two months away from the transition for Brexit and we are still debating the Agriculture Bill, still talking about trials for the replacement for BPS. Trade deals still not resolved, and all those issues over competitiveness, so many layers of uncertainty and in that vacuum, I have spoken to several farmers who have taken it on themselves to fill that gap. So rather than waiting for policy or support to level itself out, to understand what framework that would be, we have seen a couple of people recently, very recently actually who we have spoken to who have decided that the best solution for their own business is to move away from food production using the guaranteed funding from a Countryside Stewardship deal to start growing wild flowers as Melinda mentioned earlier on this idea of growing wild flowers and increasing public access and pastures and all these lovely environmental aspects and moving completely away from food production. So I think it is an important definition in there somewhere about what sustainability means and I think when we think about financial resilience it is impossible to separate that from environmental resilience now particularly given the policy direction of public money for public goods. So while we are looking at those two things in tandem I think it is really important to look at how productive food businesses or those who are best suited to grow food are to be supported within that network.
(Stuart Roberts)
I think when it comes to financial resilience, I think COVID’s been really interesting actually because I think when I talk to, in fact when I talked to colleagues of yours Matt, which I have the pleasure of doing once in a while, actually what do I see when they talk to me about agriculture, I see an industry actually that the banks, and this isn’t any particular bank this is across the sector, are desperate to invest in actually. I think there are some big issues around profitability, I think there are some big issues around confidence. For me it goes back, part of this goes back to a number of things, one is knowing what you want to do so actually we’ve invested fairly heavily in our farm business recently. Why did we do that, because actually we cracked a few problems. We cracked the succession problem that was always getting in the way of what is the appetite for risk amongst the business partners with a father who’s massively risk averse and a son who arguably is probably too much of a risk taker, so we solve that by solving the succession problem. We then looked at our business and thought where do we want to go, well what we want to do is we want to be efficient food producers who are doing our bit for the environment and I think it was touched earlier, I think Chris, you touched on this that people are making decisions themselves and some of them are actually getting out of food production, well the decision we’ve taken is actually, we want to be, if you like, that golden point where we are producing food but doing it in a way that addresses societies wider values around the environment, climate change etc. By doing all of that we’ve invested in our business, we’ve borrowed quite a lot of money, probably more money than I ever dared think I would borrow and it’s a good job Dad isn’t involved in the business now, but actually our margins are looking healthier, our efficiency is looking better, our productivity is looking better and we’re more confident.
(Melinda Raker)
If your confidence drops then your mental health isn’t good. It takes courage to commit to something different. We’ve diversified in some pretty innovative ways here, that’s due to a son having quite a lot of business nouse and having the courage to go out and find different things. I think that’s a lot more difficult for farmers say in there later 50’s, they need support, they probably need people to give them some of those ideas, glamping might not be for them. There are other ways of doing it, but a good system of support and it could be coming through Lloyds or other advisors. So, not just financial but actually looking at the business and saying, perhaps this will work for you, but they need someone to give them the courage of their convictions to do just that.
(Matt Hubbard)
I want to say a big thank you for what has been a heart-felt discussion today, and I think we have recognised that we are talking about an enormous topic, and we recognise it’s a very wide sector that we are talking about, when we refer to agriculture. We have talked about certainty and confidence; value of food has been a point in the many forms that has resonated throughout giving ourselves confidence. How do we build advocacy and awareness and also the point around agility and adaptability? Discussing finance early has been a point that has come through. And of course, support for mental health, and that key dynamic there. So, a range of very important points made. Thank you again so much everyone for the contribution to today and look forward to discussing this and other elements further in the future. So, thank you very much everyone.
