PM announces support for farming amid industry 'crisis'

The prime minister addressed the NFU annual conference on Tuesday

The prime minister announced a package of measures on Tuesday to help farmers - but many say more is needed to support an industry "in crisis".

Rishi Sunak used a speech at the National Farmers Union annual conference to outline government plans to boost the UK's food security.

The NFU broadly welcomed the plans but said they included no actual new money.

Farming protest groups say more needs to be done to protect UK farmers from competition posed by cheaper imports.

Mr Sunak made a bid to win farmers' trust, telling them that he believed food security "was a vital part of our national security".

Farmers, including Josie Lewis, say cheaper imports are undercutting UK producers

"As farming changes, how we work with you in government must change too," he said.

The conference, in Birmingham, comes as farmers are struggling with rising costs, low supermarket prices and a new post-Brexit farm payments scheme that many say has focused on environmental policy over food productivity.

Josie Lewis, 25, has taken on the family dairy farm of about 200 cows in Calne, Wilts.

"I have never done anything other than farming," she told BBC News.

"I love my job. It's hard but so rewarding."

But "having enough money to pay the bills at the end of the month is a problem," Mrs Lewis said.

She added that she believed farmers had to go through too much bureaucracy to access government grants, while being undercut by cheaper food imports from countries with lower welfare standards than the UK.

Save British Farming co-founder Liz Webster says supermarkets have too much power

"British farming is in a crisis," Mrs Lewis said.

"At the end of the day, who is going to be feeding great Britain as a country? We can't keep relying on imported goods.

"We need the government to listen to us and give us a bit more backing with funding and schemes so we can move forward and continue making a good product for members of the public."

Mr Sunak said £220m will be put into new food-productivity schemes, farm technology and automation to "reduce reliance on overseas workers" during the next financial year.

Food security

He also announced plans to cut bureaucracy around permitted development rights, so farmers can more easily diversify and develop new businesses, such as farm shops, commercial space and sporting venues.

And, while regulations are due to be laid in Parliament on Wednesday to ensure reasonable contracts for the dairy sector, similar rules for the pig and egg sector will follow.

Mr Sunak also announced the Farm to Fork food-security summit held last year will become an annual event.

He also told delegates that "we don't celebrate you enough and so on behalf of the nation I just wanted to say thank you," before saying: "I've got your back."

NFU President Minette Batters quizzed the PM on support for food production

Ahead of the conference, many farming campaign groups had said the government needed to do more and that protests, like those in Dover over the weekend, may follow.

Martin Fox, one of the founders of Proud to Farm, said the government had already "lost the trust of the farming sector" and farmers felt "the NFU isn't listening to their concerns".

Save British Farming co-founder Liz Webster, a mixed arable and beef farmer, said: "Successive governments have given too much control to the supermarkets, who've been in a price war with each other, and it's just been a drive to make everything cheap - as cheap as possible.

"But we are tied to high standards as well, so it means that we are farming as a charity in many ways."

Get Fair about Farming founder Guy Singh-Watson said a long-term plan was needed to develop more routes to market for farmers, which "would not only allow British family farmers to make a fair return on their produce but also allow them to invest in decent jobs for rural communities, protecting our climate and nature and strengthening our supply of high-quality, homegrown food for generations to come".

'Instability and volatility'

NFU president Minette Batters told BBC Breakfast that although the funding pledged by the government is "old money", she welcomed a "definite step-change" by the prime minister in what she described as "effectively a new business plan for agriculture".

She said: "What we want to see is a solid plan for food production so these [farming] businesses know the road that they are on."

Ms Batters' speech to the annual conference - her last as president - also highlighted mental health problems in the farming sector.

"We know how hard farming is sometimes. We know the toll it can take. We know that mental health for many in farming is being pushed to breaking point," she said.

She also added that farmers and growers were facing "instability and volatility" when what they really needed was "certainty", with growing food given as much support as environmental work.

"The only way forward is to place as much value on the production of food as we do on protecting our environment. I've always said these things are two sides of the same coin," she said.

Meanwhile, Labour's shadow environment, food and rural affairs secretary, Steve Reed, said the government had "undermined" British farming.

"They put up trade barriers that blocked food exports and let energy bills soar out of control, crippling producers and putting thousands out of business," he said.