Farmers must be allowed to maximise food production from their best soils, with agricultural policies targeting environmental schemes to more marginal land, according to a former MEP.
Neil Parish, former chairman of the European Parliament’s Agriculture Committee, said that with demand for food likely to soar in the coming years, producers who want to farm for the market must be encouraged to do so.
Parish was speaking to delegates on the Challenge of Rural Leadership course, run by the Rural Business School at Duchy College and the Worshipful Company of Farmers, last week.
He said he was very concerned about the future direction of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP): “There is a morality about looking after the countryside but there is also a morality about feeding people. People are starving in parts of the world, and the government must make sure we play our part in food production.”
Parish predicted that the CAP budget would drop by about 10 per cent from 2013, with greater emphasis on environmental goods and renewable energy. “But we must make sure it doesn’t become too much of a social policy. A lot of countries are pushing for the amount of labour on farms to be linked to the Single Payment [System]. But agriculture in this country has become lean and competitive, and I don’t think we should go back to putting people onto farms just for the sake of it.
“For so long we haven’t valued food production - it was always the environmental argument. But we can have both.”
The next government would also have to set up a supermarket ombudsman to protect against underhand tactics, he added. “We break up banks when they have 34 per cent of the trade, but there are no checks and balances for the retailers. We need to get the market right and must have real teeth when negotiating with the big buyers.”
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