Farmers shape the debate at Farmers Weekly Question Time

The first Farmers Weekly Question Time, a series of live regional debates on key agricultural topics, kicked off at Harper Adams University on 2 February 2023.

Farmers shaped the discussion by putting their searching questions to a panel of policymakers and influential figures, including farming minister, Mark Spencer.

Questions covered a range of topics, including the Environmental Land Management (ELM) scheme, trade, food prices and controversial celebrity Jeremy Clarkson.

See also: What has Rishi Sunak done for farming in his first 100 days?

We’ve packaged up a video, a podcast and some of the best questions here.

You can still apply for the upcoming debates in Fife, Norwich and Gloucestershire on the Farmers Weekly Question Time website.

Farmers Weekly Podcast and projects editor Johann Tasker was host for the event and  on the panel were Harper Adams vice-chancellor Michael Lee, head of farming at Sustain Vicki Hird, and Merseyside farmer and YouTube influencer Olly Harrison.

Podcast

Video

Farmers questions

A member of the audience quizzes the panel at Farmers Weekly Question Time © Richard Stanton

What is the best way to encourage more farmers to participate in the government’s Environmental Land Management (ELM) scheme?

Farming minister Mark Spencer said Defra had already increased payment rates to make them “credible and attractive”, as well as making the schemes “accessible and easy to engage with”.

“Frankly, the way we now sell that is to go and evangelise about it,” he added.

Olly Harrison was pleased to find he was going to be rewarded for actions he is already taking on his arable farm, but warned his dyslexia would mean he still needed to pay someone to go through the application process for him.

For Vicki Hird, the fact that Defra has chosen to stick with income foregone payments is disappointing. “It has still got some real problems in that context, particularly for upland farmers,” she said.

“Recognising the value of public goods differently in different parts of the country is something [the government is] going to have to review.”

She also called on the government to provide more affordable or free advice to help farmers get involved.

How can the outcomes and therefore the value of ELM be measured without any baselining taking place before the schemes?

Prof Michael Lee said that, in a scientific experiment, he would have to have an exact baseline, but noted it is not possible to treat the real-world environment in this way.

He did, however, point to the work taking place on research farms to calculate baselines.

“We have got to use a network of demonstration farms, which can testbed and track that, and then the farming community within their environment can go back and see that,” he said.

“But, of course, each intervention will work differently in different parts of the country based on soil types and meteorological conditions, so it is phenomenally complicated.”

Mark Spencer, meanwhile, said increasing insect and bird populations “has to be good for nature”.

“We will know we have improved, but we will not be able to measure it from the start point,” he added.

Audience comment from Richard Yates, Bridgnorth: “I have been farming in this way in agri-environment schemes since the last century and I do not think your schemes recognise that. I am prohibited from entering. Michael Gove said you needed 70% of the area in agri-environment schemes for it to be a success. Will you even get 17%?”

Panel response from Mark Spencer: “I think we can do a lot better than that, but I am surprised that if you are farming in that way, why you would not embrace the schemes and get paid for what you are already doing.

“One of the challenges with an audience like this is to come to an event of this nature you are already politically engaged and you are interested in agricultural politics and the future of the industry.

“I have got to try to get to your friends and neighbours who do not engage in these meetings, and that is going to be where the higher hanging fruit is.”

Will trade deals with other countries be good or bad for the sustainability of UK agriculture?

Vicki Hird said new trade deals pose a “real risk” to ELM, food standards and consumer understanding.

“We need consumers to support local farmers and have that connection,” she said. “It is very difficult if you have got more food coming from overseas.”

But Olly Harrison said he believed trade could “go both ways”.

“Why can’t we sell the rest of the world our produce?” he asked, prompting applause from the audience.

Mark Spencer agreed, saying the UK was “way ahead of the curve” on sustainability and pointing to a recent deal signed in Montreal, Canada, to reduce pesticide usage.

But on marketing UK produce abroad, he said the government had to be “a little bit careful”.

“Agriculture is not a special case on its own,” he added. “Nobody is out there promoting the UK car industry. Why are we not promoting ourselves? Why has it always got to be government-led?”

Audience comment from Andrew Court, Staffordshire: “It is all very well to say we can do partnerships, but it is not a level playing field throughout the world, simply because of exchange rates and what is happening in the global markets.

“It is all very well to say we can balance seasonality, but if it is cheaper somewhere else, what is the guarantee the country we are supplying is not going to go elsewhere?”

Audience comment from Anna Jones, Shropshire: “I was lucky enough when I was doing my Nuffield scholarship to go to Denmark, New Zealand and Ireland.

“Every time I talked to them about our ambitions to push our exports, all three looked at me as if I was mad and said: ‘Why would you want to do that? We don’t do it because we want to do it, we do it because we have populations of 5 million people and we don’t have a domestic market on our doorstep. You guys don’t have to do this, you have a massive domestic market – 68 million people.’

“When we are trying to compare ourselves to these big boys, are we actually comparing apples and pears?”

Given the shortage of available land and finances, how should young people get into farming?

Prof Michael Lee said it was important to work with schools and the wider community to show farmers are not just “people in wellies with a piece of straw hanging out of their mouth.”

“[Agriculture] is a vital, sexy industry that is going to solve problems such as how we are going to feed 11 billion people without destroying the planet,” he added.

He also suggested land was not always needed to enter the industry, pointing to the example of a group of young farmers with no land who made a success out of a flying flock, improving the health of arable soils. 

Olly Harrison said the easiest way to get into agriculture was to make money outside the industry first, but also called for interest-free loans to be made available for entrants, while Vicki Hird recommended protection for the county farms estate.

Mark Spencer highlighted the new entrant pilot schemes Defra is currently working on, but added: “I do not diminish the size of the challenge; it is huge.”

Audience comment from Matt Redman, Cambridge: “One thing pretty much avoided by everyone is there is incredible scope to get people into industry working for others. We seem to get fixed on the point of view that you have got to do it yourself.

“This devalues the message that there is another route into industry. Then the government further devalues it by calling pretty much every agricultural worker unskilled.”

Do you agree with the principle that consumers must pay the real cost of food?

Olly Harrison said consumer prices are disconnected from the farmgate price, but suggested the problem was likely down to marketing, with the public willing to pay more for bottled water than milk.

He also claimed farmers were being “ripped off” by those further up the supply chain – a point echoed by Vicki Hird, who explained farmers only get 0.09p profit from a loaf of bread. 

“In the middle, between the farmgate price and where food goes, there is a huge extraction of wealth,” she said.

She urged the government to keep the Groceries Code Adjudicator, and the consultation launched last year that proposed submerging it into the Competition and Markets Authority.

Mark Spencer said: “The Groceries Code Adjudicator is the responsibility of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, but to change that they will have to come and seek approval from Defra. It is a very important role we should keep.”

He added the government would regulate if retailers and processors did not start sharing profit more fairly.

What should be done to secure UK food production and rural communities in light of the continual loss of agricultural land for large-scale tree-planting projects, including the purchasing of family farms for so-called offsetting by large corporations?

Mark Spencer said government had to make sure trees were being planted in the right places, because they could take land out of production and put more pressure on the system.

But he added: “We are actually getting more productive year-on-year. We get about 1% more productive every year, which means that, in 10 years’ time, there will be that ability to take land out of food production into more environmental schemes and for more environmental benefits.”

Vicki Hird, meanwhile, pointed to agroforestry as a possible solution to the problem. “Putting trees on farms – livestock farms and alongside crops – has great potential,” she said.

“There is a win-win-win from agroforestry. Even the Committee on Climate Change has recognised this and said we could get 40% of the tree-planting targets from agroforestry, rather than boring monoculture plantations. I think we can go further than that.”

Audience comment from John Downes, Shropshire: “My son Tim has been helped by the Woodland Trust to do agroforestry and it was successful.

“We hosted an event in Shropshire called Down To Earth, and 1,700 people came to see what we were up to. The trees were part of the visit.

“He has planted willows because we all know willows are the cow’s aspirin, but we have also done earthworm counts, comparing the land between the trees and under the trees. Under the trees, they are tenfold higher. There are multiple benefits. Healthier cows and healthier soil.”

Is Jeremy Clarkson still a good ambassador for farming or should he be cancelled?

Olly Harrison said Jeremy Clarkson has “made a living out of being controversial” and he was always going to cross the line at some point.

“But you cannot take it away from him. He makes very entertaining TV programmes and people say he has done more for UK agriculture than the NFU has done in the past 50 years,” he added.

Mark Spencer, speaking in a personal capacity, also said Jeremy Clarkson had been a “force for good.” “He has actually shown how difficult farming is and how unprofitable it can be,” he said.

“Credit to him. In his own controversial style, he has reached the places we cannot reach, and, on balance, that is a good thing.”

But Vicki Hird disagreed, saying he had “definitely crossed the line”.

“I did like the first series. I am not sure I will watch the next one because I thought [his Meghan Markle comments were] just appalling,” she said.

Audience comment from Poppy Rawlings, Harper Adams student: “We have spoken a lot this evening about education of young people and about how consumers see farming.

“As much as he has done a lot for farming and I can see how he has made a lot of people interested, do you not think the comments he makes about minority cultures is preventing people wanting to enter agriculture?”

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