220. Would you not agree that
it would not take an Einstein to work out that one area where
farmers may require some training in future if agriculture is
going to go in the direction Agenda 2000 suggests is the whole
area of agri-environmental development and environmental protection
and environmental matters? Is that not an area farmers might be
trained in?
(Mr Lloyd Jones) That is one in part but please let's
not over-emphasise it. Certainly what we have found with agri-environmental
schemes like Tyr Cymen is that if you re-introduce the market
place for the skills then the skills will come back fairly quickly.
Mr Todd
221. Would you accept a degree of criticism
that in fact the farming community has been inert and lacking
enterprise in setting out training requirements and its view of
future educational needs?
(Mr Lloyd Jones) I am a farmer; I thought accepting
criticism was compulsory in this job. I suppose the truth of the
matter is that what is expected of a farmer has changed and changed
quite radically over the last ten years and really when you think
for four or five thousand years the whole purpose of agriculture
was actually to produce more and more, you cannot expect us as
an industry to change our entire mind-set over night. Lots are
but—
222. From the local experience I have in my
area, the Chamber of Commerce, the TEC and the local agricultural
college have been singularly lacking in suggestions on how to
address training needs in agriculture both for farmers and other
people in the farmhouse who may need help as well. Bearing in
mind the context of what we have to face which is often low initial
educational backgrounds in the farming communities, I have been
shocked at how little has been done in this area.
(Mr Lloyd Jones) Again it does vary from area to area.
Certainly from the part I know of North Wales the local authorities
have been very proactive in running things like computer courses
aided albeit by European funding.
223. But there is a huge amount more to be done
in defining requirements and really it has to come down to people
who know farming and the rural economy to define the needs much
more clearly. It cannot be done entirely from outside. Certainly
if my area is typical really very little has been done and I have
had to take the lead in pushing this myself.
(Mr McLaughlin) I think that is a very legitimate
observation. I think the problem, Mr Todd, is that in the farming
communities we are dealing with variable sectors. There are those
who are out at the front who are innovative who can clearly articulate
what they need but there is still an element in farming that sees
training like the measles—if you are lucky you only catch
it once! It is that core that we need to stimulate and to recognise
the need for training before we take them forward in the types
of training they need to take.
224. There is considerable individual quality.
There is one local farmer in my area who is Internet-linked and
communicating in that way. That is not unusual but that is one
small echelon in a very large sector which is relatively unexposed
to modern thinking in this area.
(Mr McLaughlin) One further point is we should see
agricultural establishments and so on as much as rural resource
centres as just agricultural centres. I think there is a lot of
potential to be exploited there that has not been looked at.
Mr Marsden
225. You mentioned in your paper changes to
institutional structures in the UK which will affect delivery
of rural development policy. In terms of the seven-year rural
development programmes in England do you think they should be
prepared at national level, regional level or local level?
(Mr McLaughlin) There clearly has to be a national
framework within which rural development policies progress but
I think the emergence of the Assembly in Wales and the Parliament
in Scotland has actually produced a new model of thinking as to
how we are going to engage regional development structures. Given
the fact that regional development agencies are responsible for
not only economic redevelopment but also carry responsibility
for implementing the Government's sustainable development objectives
there has got to be a significant degree of integration between
what is proposed under the rural development European programmes
and what the RDAs will be about. My slight problem of course is
that RDAs and what they are going to be about is unknown territory
to us so we do not see how that integration will take place. In
theory there should be a degree of integration. Having said that,
there must still be a role for the local authority because in
all of this there has still to be a degree of accountability.
We are looking at public expenditure here even the 50 per cent
or 20 per cent co-financing or whatever, so there has to be a
degree of accountability. Pending referendums on assemblies or
whatever RDAs do not yet have an accountability framework so the
answer to your question is all three tiers will come into play.
The regional development tier offers quite an interesting opportunity
and I think it will be interesting to explore how far we can push
the RDA thinking to pick up some of the agenda that has been addressed
by the rural development agencies.
226. I accept what you are saying but you stopped
at the tier of local authorities. If you talk to ordinary farmers,
as I am sure you do every day, and talk to ordinary people in
these villages very often there is a problem relating to those
local authorities. How do you actually then produce development
through consultation with the ordinary people living in those
villages with a rural development programme that affects them
directly?
(Mr McLaughlin) As someone who used to advise the
NFU on planning as my main responsibility I am fully aware of
the communication gap that exists between farmers and local authorities.
I think there is a learning curve on both sides. I think there
has been a tendency in the European programmes so far that by
defining farmers as social partners it seemed as if they were
not allowed to sit at the big table so the agenda has to be broadened
to include the farming community or the private sector at the
top level. I think farmers have also got to be aware that the
name of the game in European funding is partnership and competition
for funds. Farming communities traditionally feel as long as you
meet the eligibility criteria then you automatically receive the
funding. I think there is a massive education programme on both
sides. We have got to try to alert and advise farmers how to engage
in this dialogue. By the same token public authorities have to
accept that there is not a monopoly on wisdom and they do not
have it.
(Mr Lloyd Jones) Some local authorities have been
very successful with their European funding by having a European
division within the local authority and quite crucially they have
project officers that work with the Community trying to develop
these initiatives.
227. I think the point I am driving at here
is I agree that some local authorities are quite good and I know
that Shropshire County Council have their very own Objective 5b
officers. Do you not think it is time that these organisations
literally got to grips with the grass-roots, whether it is through
public opinion polls, or through open meetings with farmers, or
the us of the Internet, because there is always a communication
problem in getting actual views on the ground. Undoubtedly you
try extremely hard to throw open the door and say to the farmers,
"Please come to us and express your views", but it is
different from actually going out there and engaging in dialogue
so we can help create the sort of rural development programme
people actually want.
(Mr Lloyd Jones) I do not think it is possible to
develop a model that will do that overnight. As you quite rightly
say, it is happening in some areas. What we need to do is find
out why it is happening in those areas and to use best practice.
It is a combination of the LEADER groups have been good at fostering
local initiatives, the local authorities have through the employment
of the project officers. That is the kind of thing. My own experience
of Brecon Beacons National Park is they ran a Planning for Real
campaign about three or four years ago. They put a lot of resources
into trying to involve everybody and the turnout in local communities
was a success if it reached 25 per cent and that was about the
development boundaries within their own villages which you would
have thought would have been of extreme interest to everybody
living within that village. That is what we are trying to aim
for. How we achieve it I cannot give you a pat answer.
228. I understand what you are saying. When
it is something like planning a lot of people switch off unless
they want a house built or to expand their own property in some
way. They cannot see how it relates to them. We need to reinvigorate
and revitalise those heartlands of rural England. What are your
views on two way dialogue because you do not seem to have necessarily
concurred with it?
(Mr McLaughlin) I think the only model that is comparable
is the idea of having liaison officers to go out and sell the
message but from experience some of the 5b funded areas had funded
within their programmes animators, call them what you may, but
some form of focus person who was to go out and sell the message.
The implication of your comment is that that does not go far enough.
When we re-visit rural development programmes again, clearly one
of the key issues we must address is information and advice to
the public as to what this is about, how it relates to his or
her world and how they can access it. From the farming community
certainly we would argue that the last round of rural development
programmes did not do a Heineken and get to the parts that needed
to be refreshed. I think probably we should learn from that to
avoid that happening next time round.
Mr Hurst
229. Thank you for your helpful evidence but
I believe you criticise the Commission's proposed rural development
measures which unlike agri-environmental measures will not be
mandatory and will not receive co-financing rates. Would you like
to see any or all of the rural development elements in the draft
regulation mandatory for Member States?
(Mr McLaughlin) We have tried to address this in an
earlier question. Mandatory requirements would seem to be an easy
option but what is mandatory? You can influence what is subsequently
taken up by the difficulties and hurdles you put in the way of
eligibility so you can create a lengthy list of mandatory requirements
but by designing the entry criteria you can make sure that really
only two or three are taken up. I am not so sure that the mandatory
approach, although it is simplistic and attractive, will necessarily
achieve what we want to achieve hence my suggestion earlier on
in reply to a question from Mr Todd that perhaps we should ask
the Commission when they receive applications or programmes from
Member States to require the Member States to provide a reasoned
justification as to why they have chosen not to offer certain
elements of that programme. The mandatory option—and we
have discussed it in Brussels at great length—is very attractive
but at the end of the day what we are really after is something
happening on the ground and making a list mandatory does not of
itself achieve that objective.
(Mr Lloyd Jones) As Brian says, what we are looking
for is a balanced package. The danger is if only one element of
the agri-environment element is compulsory within certain Member
States that is the only element that will be taken up.
230. Which of the measures contained in Article
31 of the draft regulation would you like to see introduced in
this country?
(Mr McLaughlin) Clearly in our evidence to the inquiry
we identify a number of areas, retraining of farmers, effective
marketing of food, assistance to add value to core enterprises.
We identify those as certain preference areas for introduction
in the United Kingdom.
231. Can I ask you on the question of marketing
of food, how do you envisage that would take place? Would that
be through the industry itself or some government board or commission?
(Mr McLaughlin) We have had marketing and processing
programmes in the past which were actually withdrawn two or three
years ago and that was the sort of thing we had in mind, the reintroduction
of these marketing and processing grants to assist farmers and
increasingly groups of farmers to get closer to the market place
which is what they are being required to do.
(Mr Lloyd Jones) There are marketing schemes already
in place now. There is European funding for the Fell Bred scheme,
which is a good scheme and we have some extremely good ones in
Wales as well. If you happen to be in Objective 5b and Objective
2 you can access these funds. Unfortunately not everybody is within
Objective 5b or Objective 2 areas.
232. If there are funds for a particular product
Farmer Smith down the road might complain about Farmer Lloyd Jones
up the road because of the fact his product is receiving a form
of subsidy by being promoted while the other chap down the road
is not. Are there likely to be divisions in the farming community?
(Mr Lloyd Jones) I suppose the easy answer is for
the other farmer to join the scheme as well or to produce it to
an acceptable standard to go into the scheme. If he is not producing
the same product he is not in competition, is he?
233. He is in competition in that he is supporting
a farm in a particular locality. You could not have all farmers
following where a grant was on a particular promotion.
(Mr Lloyd Jones) I understand that.
Ms Keeble
234. You say in your evidence that basing the
level of agri-environmental schemes on income foregone negates
their appeal at a time of declining farm incomes. Do you have
any evidence for that?
(Mr Lloyd Jones) I think we are flagging a concern
as farm incomes drop and if the funding and the future of agri-environment
schemes were to be based on income foregone obviously the funding
level would drop. What we are saying is there are far more equitable
ways of funding agri-environmental schemes on a combination of
work undertaken and public benefit provided.
235. It is a deduction rather than hard evidence.
That is the basis on which you are making the statement?
(Mr Lloyd Jones) That is the basis. I think that is
a concern for the future.
236. When you say work undertaken and public
benefit if you actually look at the text of what the European
Union has put out it says that support for agri-environmental
should be undertaken on income foregone, additional cost including
capital works and the need to provide incentives. Some of these
are clear. I do not understand what incentive payments would be.
That does surely take on board some of your concerns, does it
not? It takes on board two of the issues?
(Mr Lloyd Jones) Yes.
237. In terms of public benefit how would you
assess that? How would you put a value to a public benefit?
(Mr Lloyd Jones) I am looking at Brian because, in
fact, it is an extremely good question. The problem about that,
as we mentioned earlier, is that public perception and what is
perceived as a public benefit actually changes. It is actually
trying to fix a time. What is the value of a good which has been
produced by farmers? The Environment Agency have made a decent
stab at exactly what should be the monetary value of a whole range
of environmental products. If you have a month you can wade your
way through it because it is about this thick. It is in fact extremely
difficult to do it.
238. Do you not think that the actual fixed
costs, income foregone, additional costs from undertaking the
work, including non-remunerative capital works, is fair enough
and public benefit would have to come out of the farmer marketing
whatever it was that had been produced? It might be a particularly
beautiful landscape or I do not know what else.
(Mr Lloyd Jones) Surely the level of incentive would
be to some extent based on the perception of the public good provided.
239. You work it under the need to try and provide
an incentive for the public benefit? Is that what you are saying?
(Mr McLaughlin) Yes in that the level of incentive
should in some way reflect the perceived or calculated public
benefit derived from that. The problem of evaluation of these
things is there is a veritable library of schemes that have attempted
to cost environmental assets, if you like, and as is the nature
of most of these projects, the second one starts off with a criticism
of the shortcomings of the first one. I think we are still pretty
far away from a method that is readily agreed. So I suppose in
many ways we are using a fairly simplistic and crude indicator
as the way forward.
