Memorandum submitted by Hugo Marfleet
(RAS 22)
1. I have been involved in British Agriculture
as a farmer for 13 years. I started off a specialist pig operation
for a breeding company growing their breeding stock. That business
has now ceased together with its relevant staff due to environmental
and financial pressures. We limp on with arable farming and have
set up a free range poultry business supplying eggs to a major
packer. Still the future looks bleak. We are now looking at farm
diversity in terms of a farm tourist attraction. In the research
for the farm tourist attraction I have travelled the length and
breadth of the country. The one thing that is absolutely apparent
is that the countryside is a wonderful, green and pleasant land.
The UK towns and cities are an eyesore and litter haven. BUT as
those people commute to their second homes, or the seaside, or
the country retreats for leisure, they all go through England's
wonderful countryside. We saw a huge knock-on effect when we had
foot and mouth in this country and the damage in the tourist industry.
We still have this effect today with possible Avian Influenza.
The bottom line is you need grazing animals to graze all the grazing
land and arable farmers to farm the arable land. Therefore the
grazing animals and the poultry industry require feed. If we do
not have livestock because it is uneconomical to obtain a living
from having livestock it only gets transferred to outside European
countries, ie Brazil, and the damage to the environment of bringing
a cow, which will have the same effect whether it is living here
or in Brazil in unnecessary food miles. It is in these times with
issues like global warming that we need to start to change to
a local policy. Agriculture is green as it is and it has a negative
carbon relationship. There is no reason why the UK agricultural
industry cannot provide for the environment a decent living and,
most of all, put good wholesome food on the consumers' plate.
However, if the supermarkets do not promote these benefits, and
only promotes is own benefits for cheap cuts, then, in the end,
the UK agricultural industry will be like the dinosaurs, slowly
dying a death.
2. We have now gone into mad extreme policies
whereby middleclass management are dictating policies when they
have never been on a farm, near a farm and know nothing about
farming, and are creating a situation of extreme administration
whereby to ask yourself a basic question "can I spread farmyard
manure on set aside" one has to trail through four to five
books to potentially find an answer. These people create more
to keep themselves in a job. If all this people were told "come
up with some good ideas on farming don't try and kill it off"
we might be in a better way. As Beecham said "shut the railways
down that will save us money"—anybody could say why
not come up with a sensible package and take it forward—that
is harder but better in the long term.
3. The big question is "does UK agriculture
want family run businesses that have great attention to detail
for both stock, environment, or, large agri-businesses where profit
will override everything and, if there is not any profit they
will walk".
June 2006
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