I established the Policy Commission into food and farming, in the immediate aftermath of the 2001 Foot and Mouth Disease epidemic. It was apparent then that the state of our farming industry and its perceived disconnection from the rest of the food chain, its customers, rural communities and the environment, needed radical solutions. The Policy Commission brought together people from across the spectrum of interests to do just that.
In December 2002, in response to the Policy Commission’s Report, we published the government’s strategy for sustainable farming and food. This fully accepted the Commission’s excellent Report as the key building block behind the Government’s vision.
We set up an independent Implementation Group - to oversee the implementation of the strategy, to help sell the message to the wider community and to keep us honest. I was very glad that Don Curry himself agreed to chair this group of distinguished outsiders.
I would like to express my personal thanks to Don and to the members of the Policy Commission and the Implementation Group, for their time, commitment and energy. But I also pay tribute to the many people on the ground who are taking the initiative and changing the way they do business.
We all knew it would be years before we saw the full impact of the changes we are all seeking. But already real progress has been made across the strategy. Decoupling of CAP support from production will help reconnect farming businesses to the market and to wider society. We have set up the Food Chain Centre, English Farming and Food Partnerships and Assured Food Standards 2003 and are already seeing the first outputs which will raise performance in the food chain. We are driving forward a sustainable procurement initiative to encourage the public sector to buy food from sustainable sources and the Entry Level Agri-environment Scheme has been rolled out in four pilot areas, involving 270 farms.
I have always stressed that government cannot - indeed must not - do it all. I am encouraged that this agenda has been understood and is being taken forward across the industry and we must continue to spread the messages contained in the Strategy. Thinking back to the conditions in which the Commission was launched - FMD, incomes at rock bottom, hopelessness, lack of dialogue between farming, the environment and rural businesses - I think what has already been achieved is remarkable.
We must, though, keep working together: to secure an economically and environmentally sound future for the farming and food industries, to maintain thriving rural communities and to produce nutritious food for the nation. This conference will help us to do this and I wish it every success.
No comments yet