Conservative Party leader David Cameron told the NFU's centenary conference that food security would be a priority for the Tories should they get into power. He also laid into the current government, labeling it “incompetent, arrogant and over-bearing”.
The incumbent government has failed its food industry, he said, by compounding the difficulties facing it with the catastrophic management of the single farm payments scheme, its muddled response to BSE, Bovine TB and other problems, and its obsession with regulation. Defra, he said, implemented a record 150 new regulations in 2006, creating a ”bureaucratic mess”.
He added that the government has summarily failed to support British farmers. “The current government doesn’t have the feeling in its bones for British agriculture that the Conservative party has. [If we were in power] we would have a different set of ministers, with a different set of priorities, who genuinely care about the countryside, live in it and understand the requirement of British farming,” said Cameron.
“It is a national disgrace that we don’t have a proper procurement policy for British food,” he added, citing that only five per cent of the meat eaten by the British army is domestically produced. “I know that there are rules on open procurement, but don’t try and tell me that the French army eats British beef.”
Cameron told a sold-out conference that the country needs the farming community to meet the challenges of the 21st century head-on, with confidence, ingenuity and creativity, and the government to assist the process by giving farmers more power, control and responsibility.
He said: "If we give farmers greater freedom - by creating a genuine free market for you to work in, by changing our whole approach to regulation, and giving you the means to connect with your customers through proper food labelling and the ability to set up food co-operatives - we are literally giving them more power and more control over the decisions that affect them.
"Once you have that power, as a Conservative, I fundamentally believe you will become far more conscious about the way you use it. More responsible about your environmental impact, more responsible about the kind of food you produce as you'll be judged by consumers not government, and more responsible in making sure you reduce your costs, meet rising demand, and produce more of our country's food.”
In 1996, he said, the UK was 72 per cent self sufficient in food, now it’s 60 per cent. He talked of a "food crunch”, and said: “The current government has said that domestic production is neither a necessary nor sufficient condition for food security. It thinks it can rely on globalisation and foreign markets to fill any gap between domestic demand and domestic supply. And what a gap it is becoming.”
The Conservatives, he reiterated, would favour domestic production. “The overall effect will be to make Britain greener and safer. Yes, reduced carbon emissions. But absolutely, fundamentally, guaranteed food security. I believe this vision can become a reality,” Cameron said.
"We're all in this together and, if everyone plays their part, British farming can look forward to a secure and prosperous future,” he said.
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