NFU president Peter Kendall has argued that a refocused Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) could be the driver for a thriving and profitable farming industry in the UK.

Kendall told the Oxford Farming Conference this morning (7 January) that thegovernment and the European Commission still have crucial roles to play in ensuring policy is in line with the massive challenge of global food security.

He said: “Getting CAP right is absolutely fundamental, not just to us as farmers, but to all of us, inside Europe and out. It is difficult to overstate how much the future of the CAP matters.

“We need to improve governance, stripping things down to bare essentials; a functioning food chain that works; evidence and science-based regulation; the power for countries to decide their own rural development programmes and environmental enhancement priorities; and a European Commission that points forwards to progress, not backwards to protection – one that champions and promotes a competitive agriculture.'

Kendall, who will leave his role after eight years in February, added: “I hope my successor gets to work with a government that promotes, rather than disadvantages, its own farmers, and one that stands at the heart of Europe, bringing others along with it, to improve agriculture’s competitiveness instead of standing on the sidelines.'

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