|
March 18th, 2000
INAUGURAL RALLY - 10.30 AM BALMORA SUITE,
QUEEN'S HOTEL, PERTH
INTRODUCTION
Can I by way of an introduction give you some
background about my own experience and position
within the European Parliament? I am the Spokesman
on Scottish Farming in the EPP/ED ruling Group.
I am also, for my sins, Front Bench Spokesman
on Fisheries for the UK Conservative Group. Unlike
any of the farm ministers currently presiding
over the catastrophe that is rural Britain today,
I am a farmer and I am not a vegetarian.
DECLINE OF SCOTTISH FARMING
I am delighted to be here at the inaugural rally
of the Scottish Conservative Countryside Forum
and it is a pleasure to share a platform with
so many eminent speakers from the world of agri-politics.
I am particularly pleased to see Tim Yeo, our
Shadow Agriculture Minister from Westminster and
Alex Johnstone, Rural Affairs Chairman from Holyrood,
here today. Although we meet on a regular basis,
this is the first time the three of us, representing
the three parliaments, have shared a platform
together. I am also delighted to welcome Nigel
Finch and trust that the SCCF will become an invaluable
partner in the excellent work that he does south
of the border. I think Frank Spencer-Nairn in
particular deserves our heartfelt congratulations
for organising this event and providing us all
with a welcome platform.
Ladies and gentlemen, we are witnessing the destruction
of rural Britain by Blair and his cronies and
it is time each of us stood up and was counted.
That is why I think the launching of the SCCF
is of major importance. No other party is prepared
to fight for rural Scotland and I believe this
organisation will be of great help and significance
in the battles, which lie ahead.
It is symptomatic of this New Labour Government
that confronted with a problem, Tony Blair instantly
turns to his spin- doctors for an answer. This
explains why Blair recently, and ludicrously,
claimed that there is no rural crisis. Indeed,
Alastair Campbell and the army of un-elected and
un-accountable spin- doctors were ordered to come
up with a report, which could help Blair deny
the existence of a rural crisis.
They did so, in a pathetic document which rehearsed
arguments about the quality of scenery in the
countryside compared to that in towns and the
fear of crime in urban areas and all the usual
nonsense. All of which was then taken to demonstrate
that living in the country, represents a better
quality of life than living in town and therefore,
this clearly shows there is no rural crisis.
The sad thing is that Blair thought he only had
to travel down to Devon and Cornwall….actually
visit the countryside….and spew out this ardent
rubbish, to convince everyone that no crisis exists
and everything is hunky dory. Well thankfully,
our farming colleagues in the south - west sent
him hameword tae think again!
You don't need me to rehearse the statistics,
but it is startling to note the collapse in net
farm incomes in Scotland over the past five years.
In 1995/96, net farm income in Scotland amounted
to £595 million. This fell to £470 million in
1996/97. However, when Labour came to power that
year, farm profits entered a period of spiral
decline, falling spectacularly to £270 million
in 1997/98 and then halving again to an estimated
£135 million in 1998/99.
Given the appalling state of the industry at
the end of last year, with most commodity prices
on a downwards roller-coaster, and with bull calves
out of the dairy herd and cast ewes virtually
worthless, it is no wonder that farm incomes in
Scotland are set to fall below £100 million for
the first time this year, marking in stark terms
the encroaching demise of our once great industry.
Scottish farmers now owe the banks in excess
of £1.2 billion. It does not take a genius to
calculate, therefore, that net farm incomes this
year will not even be sufficient to meet interest
payments on farmers' overdrafts. This spells certain
doom for great many farmers whom are presently
clinging on by their fingernails, hoping that
a miracle might save them. The reality is, as
all of us know only too well, that miracles only
occur in fairy tales and farming in Britain at
the beginning of the third millennium is far from
a fairy tale…more like a nightmare!
Scottish Hill farmers earned on average only
£1700 last year, with mixed hill units faring
even worse at only £924. At a time when the minimum
wage has been introduced across the UK, it is
ironic and shocking that our hill farmers are
earning less than 50p an hour for a forty-hour
week and, incidentally, most of them would judge
a forty-hour week as a holiday. The reality is
that they work endless hours in all weather conditions
and cannot even afford the time or the cash to
take a holiday. Their situation is pitiful.
It is worth pointing out that while there is
a recession affecting the agricultural industry
across the EU, nowhere is it as severe as in the
UK. I spoke to a Dutch farmer who told me that
he was selling day old Friesian Holstein bull
calves for the equivalent of £150 per head in
Holland, where they have a burgeoning veal trade
and a strong demand for young calves. They would
take thousands from Britain if they could. The
same applies to virtually every other Member State.
However, even if the ban on live exports were
to be lifted tomorrow, it would make little difference.
The animal rights protesters were determined to
stop the live calf export trade long before the
BSE crisis. The fact that it leads to new-born
calves being shot and dumped in a hole in the
ground apparently causes them no sleepless nights,
because their long-term aim is to bring the entire
livestock sector to its knees and how close they
are to victory.
Of course there are a variety of factors, which
have conspired to deepen the crisis in the UK.
The collapse in the Asian and Russian markets
has had an impact across the entire EU agricultural
sector, but the strength of the pound against
the Euro, coupled with the BSE crisis, has hit
British farming particularly hard.
The NFU FARM SURVEY
The NFU conducted a survey of over 5000 farmers
towards the end of last year which made disturbing
reading, showing how the majority of farmers are
living on a knife-edge, keen to get out of the
industry altogether, but unable to afford even
to retire, because the capital value of their
assets has been overtaken by the size of their
overdrafts. More worryingly, 66% of farmers' children
said they will not follow their fathers or mothers
into the family farm, so disillusioned have they
become.
The long hours, dire financial returns and gross
instability of the industry have completely overwhelmed
them. It is a picture of stress, worry, overwork
and disaffection, which is symptomatic of an industry
now beset with ill-conceived and often pointless
and unnecessary over-regulation, gold-plated Brussels
bureaucracy and government indifference. I thought
it was particularly poignant during Blair's visit
to the south west of England, when a 6 year old
farmer's son handed him a painting he'd done of
some tractors. Written on the painting was "I
hope I can farm here when I grow up." The truth
is that that wee boy and thousands like him will
not be able to farm. This government will have
wrecked the industry and laid waste to vast tracts
of countryside across rural Britain.
THE BSE CRISIS
The roots of the current crisis can be traced
back to the startling statement made in the House
of Commons on March 20th. 1996, when the then
Health Minister Stephen Dorrell said that there
could be a link between BSE and new variant CJD.
Virtually overnight there was a collapse in consumer
confidence in British beef. No matter if you had
never fed concentrates to your cattle and had
reared your stores on home grown barley and silage,
you were instantly tarred with the same brush
as everyone else. All British beef was suspect.
The media circus was a spectacle to behold.
They rooted around for every half-baked scientist
willing to trot out some cack-handed theory about
the looming plague, which would certainly wipe
out mankind, as we knew it. The story became European
and world-wide within hours and British beef was
taken off the menu in burger bars and school canteens
across the land and then banned from export across
the world. Retail sales of beef dropped by 26%,
with lower-value cuts such as minced beef crashing
by 40%. Our export market, which was worth £500
million in 1995, came to an abrupt end. The knock-on
affect across the whole agricultural industry
was significant.
Now, more than three years and many billions
of pounds later, what have we learned? Certainly
we have learned that there has been no epidemic
of nv CJD.
Indeed, although every case is a matter of deep
tragedy, there have, nevertheless, been a total
of only 53 known deaths occurring from what is
termed "definite or probable cases of nv CJD".
Several of these tragic victims were found to
have been life-long or long-standing vegetarians.
The point is that to this day, a certain link
between BSE and CJD has not been proven. I think
that history will regard this whole episode as
one of the great follies of the twentieth century.
An industry laid waste, based on weak science
and alarmist over-reaction. Despite this, we are
still slaughtering animals at the rate of 95,000
a month under the OTMS arrangements, their healthy
carcasses consigned to incinerators and their
ashes buried in landfill sites, while more than
half a million tonnes of tallow and meat and bone
meal is lying festering in massive stores. What
a legacy to pass on to the next generation and
what a way to inspire consumer confidence in our
industry. Over three and a half million animals
have been destroyed, the vast majority of them,
fine, healthy beasts, untainted by even the slightest
hint of disease. Dozens of abattoirs, slaughterhouses
and rendering plants have gone out of business.
Hundreds, maybe even thousands of jobs have been
lost.
THE FRENCH AND GERMAN BEEF BAN
At long last Germany has decided to debate whether
to lift the ban on British beef. In repeated meetings
with Agriculture Commissioner Franz Fischler and
Consumer Affairs & Food Safety Commissioner David
Byrne, I have demanded a more "aggressive and
robust" approach to Germany from the European
Commission. I have told them that British beef
farmers are sick to death of the way in which
the European Commission has pussyfooted around
the illegal ban on British beef. Almost eight
months have passed since the ban was supposed
to be lifted and yet France has dug in its heels
and now Germany is running rings around the European
Commission, pretending that it is innocently seeking
ways to lift the ban as soon as possible.
The truth is the Consumer Affairs Commissioner
David Byrne has abandoned all attempts to seek
interim court measures, which would have forced
France to lift its ban, pending the final outcome
of the case in the Luxembourg courts. Now the
German Government has taken this as a clear sign
of weakness and has decided to put the brakes
on further moves to discuss lifting the ban in
Germany.
While all of this pussyfooting goes on, British
beef farmers continue to suffer. That is why I
told Commissioner Fischler and Byrne that it is
high time the European Commission applied a more
robust and aggressive approach to France and Germany.
The Commission should call for urgent oral hearings
before the European Court, which would propel
the issue to the top of the court's list forcing
France and Germany to defend their illegal actions
within weeks, rather than waiting months or years.
NEW FOOD SAFETY AUTHORITY
Following the publication of their White Paper
on Food Safety in January, I warned the European
Commission not to allow its new European Food
Safety Authority, when it is set up in two years
time, to become another huge layer of costly European
bureaucracy. I told EU Health and Consumer Protection
Commissioner David Byrne to give the new Authority
teeth to deal with Member States who break the
rules, such as France and Germany in the current
beef war with the UK. However, I also warned that
the new Authority must not become a bonanza for
lawyers, who may wish to develop a lucrative new
business arbitrating between decisions of the
EU's Food Safety Authority and Food Safety Agencies
set up by individual Member States.
I was alarmed to see Mr Byrne admitting that
his new authority will have no real teeth, but
will cost an arm and a leg and employ over 200
top scientific personnel. This all sounds like
an admission that the Commission has failed miserably
in its attempts to bring France and Germany to
heel over their illegal ban on British beef, while
also failing to give proper leadership over a
series of food safety disasters such as dioxin,
sewage sludge and BSE.
FRANCE IS A SERIAL OFFENDER
The recent decision by the European Commission
to take action against France in the European
Courts over their illegal beef ban, is only the
latest in a long list of serial disobedience by
the French government.
France now tops the list of countries that regularly
defy European laws and regulations, with 419 directives
not applied. The second worse countries are Italy
(329) and Germany (293). Interesting to see that
the French and the Germans are in first and third
place and yet they are the countries who always
claim to be in the heart of Europe, striving for
ever deeper integration and harmonisation of all
Euro laws. Now it seems that they only obey those
laws, which they agree with.
The irony is that in Scotland, in the past year
we have had only 35 cases of suspected BSE. France,
on the other hand, has had many more cases of
BSE during the same period and yet they are refusing
to allow our beef into their country, while we
continue to allow their beef into ours. It is
ridiculous! I hope the new carcass tests for BSE
which the Swiss and French have been testing with
some success, may be applied across the entire
EU. I am certain that such tests will give British
beef the all clear, while identifying the true
extent of BSE in countries like France.
I am also glad that moves are afoot to introduce
a directive on beef labelling, which will allow
consumers to identify British beef and enable
them to avoid lower quality beef from the Continent.
We must demand a system of labelling that ensures
any foodstuffs entering the UK are produced only
to the extremely high standards which we have
imposed upon our own farmers and processors. There
must no longer be one 'gold-plated' law for the
British and another, inferior law for the rest.
DIOXINS AND SEWAGE SLUDGE
What really annoys me through all this business
about BSE are these sanctimonious animal rights
fundamentalists who again and again repeat the
lie that it was greedy farmers, desperate to increase
profits by exploiting their cattle, who introduced
animal waste into feedingstuffs, causing the outbreak
of BSE in the first place. How naive to think
that farmers would ever have the ability to influence
anything the big feed manufacturers do.
Sadly, I have to tell you that the same multinational
feed manufacturers have learned nothing from the
lessons of history. In Belgium we are still dealing
with the fallout from the dioxin scare, where
millers decided to supplement their use of old
cooking oils in their animal feeds by adding in
a few hundred gallons of motor oil. Needless to
say, when this evil brew was heated up in the
manufacturing process, it produced deadly PCBs
which then worked their way through the food chain
and ended up in chickens and other meat products
on the supermarket shelves.
As if that was not enough, we then had the sewage
sludge scandal in Holland, Belgium and France,
where they have been putting dried sewage into
animal feeds. After the European Commission banned
the dumping of human sewage sludge at sea, many
local authorities throughout Europe cast around
for something to do with it. Eh voila, along come
the good old feed-millers with the ideal solution.
Let's shove it into the mix and feed it to our
livestock. What a great way to increase protein
content and what a super way to increase profits.
Once again, it's the poor farmers who get it
in the neck and consumer confidence, which takes
another pounding. And at the end of the day, once
the Commission have introduced a whole new welter
of regulations and controls affecting the manufacture
of animal feeds, which probably only the British
will obey, it will be the farmers who have to
meet the cost of implementing these controls,
as the manufacturers put their prices up.
THE SHEEP SECTOR
At the end of last year in Strasbourg I got the
MLC to deliver a special consignment of prime
Scotch lamb to the Members Restaurant in the European
Parliament and a piper in full Highland Dress
to pipe it in. 96 MEPs, Commission staff and the
new Food Safety and Consumer Affairs Commissioner
- David Byrne - attended the lunch and heard Gwyn
Howells, Director General of the MLC - and the
man who turned NIKE from a gym-shoe into an international
fashion icon - explain how he was tackling the
challenge of getting the UK meat industry back
on its feet. He explained how the British meat
trade now faces stricter food hygiene and safety
standards than anywhere else in the world and
yet told us how lamb exports have fallen from
146,500 tonnes in 1995 to 98,000 tonnes today.
Although this is in part due to the knock-on
impact from the BSE crisis, it has also catastrophically,
coincided with a collapse in wool prices due to
economic problems affecting the Asian market and
a massive slump in sheep hide exports, following
the Russian economic crash. French demands for
older ewes has virtually fallen to zero due to
scrapie fears and that, in turn, has lead to a
glut of sheep in the UK. The strong pound, rising
abattoir costs and inadequate subsidies all conspired
to place enormous pressures on the sheep sector,
with some farmers resorting to shooting a burying
their cast ewes as the only alternative to feeding
them through another winter. Now we have seen
an actual fall in Sheep Annual Premiums of around
£2-50p per head at the same time as the farmers
in the rest of Euroland enjoy an increase.
Again this can be laid at the door of the strong
pound, but why does our government refuse to claim
agrimonetary compensation. There is £400 million,
which could be made available to British farmers,
£60 million of which is new money, available from
the European Commission. While it would only provide
a short-term fillip to the industry, it would
nevertheless be of invaluable assistance. So why
does Nick Brown procrastinate while Gordon Brown
refuses to open his war chest? It is high time
we claimed what is due to us in Britain and if
we don't do so by April, the money will be lost.
More worryingly, I had a meeting with Franz Fischler
only last week and he confirmed that if the UK
does not claim this agrimonetary compensation
this year, he will find it extremely difficult
to argue for it to be retained in the budget for
next year. So Britain will sustain a double whammy
and once again it will be the farmers who suffer
the consequences.
THE DAIRY SECTOR
Now, of course, it is the dairy sector, which
is in crisis. Still struggling to shake off the
devastating impact of BSE, plummeting milk prices
and a collapse in the calf trade following the
Government's ending of the calf processing scheme,
has hit dairy farmers particularly hard. The fact
that the farm gate price of a pint of milk was
standing at around 10p, while the retail price
remains at well over 30p, perhaps serves to illustrate
dramatically the rip-off culture that bestrides
the entire agricultural industry. At the very
least, farmers could have expected consumers to
benefit from the catastrophically low prices they
are currently receiving for almost every category
of commodity. Low prices could even have stimulated
demand. But not a bit of it…..the lower the prices
fall to the primary producers, the higher they
rise to the consumer. Someone is making a killing….profiteering
at the expense of a beleaguered industry. Now
farmers have started pouring milk down the drain
and spreading it on fields. It is a pitiful sight
to behold.
THE PIG INDUSTRY
But the dairy sector is not alone. During the
past two years the pig industry has experienced
acute difficulties and it anticipates a reduction
of the national UK herd by up to a third, as more
and more pig farmers are driven out of business.
The failure of other EU member states to match
the extremely high welfare standards, which apply
in Britain, such as the stall and tether ban,
has placed the UK pig sector at a severe disadvantage.
Competition on a level playing field with overseas
producers is almost impossible.
Pig meat produced abroad by illegal or sub-standard
methods should be banned from sale in the UK.
Our pig meat is a premium product and we must
seek to introduce compulsory labelling that reflects
this by specifying that the pig was reared in
the UK and not merely processed there.
We must also ensure that the French Government
stops paying illegal subsidies to their pig farmers.
Yet again, this illustrates how the French are
often the first to break the rules of the Single
Market, but always the first to complain when
someone else does.
I organised a meeting with Commissioner Fischler
in Strasbourg last Tuesday, for leaders of the
Scottish Pig Industry and Peter Stewart, newly
elected Vice Chairman of the NFUS. This was an
immensely useful meeting with the Commissioner
confirming that the UK government should come
forward with an industry re-structuring package
which could even include an element of debt-relief.
He said that he had held talks with Nick Brown
in London last Thursday, but as yet, had received
no response.
CEREALS
Needless to say, when the rest of the farming
industry catches a cold, the cereals sector comes
down with pneumonia. Arable crops occupy a central
place in the farm sector as much in terms of human
consumption as in demand from the animal feed
industry. It stands to reason, therefore, that
when all of these sectors are in severe recession,
the arable sector suffers. When one considers
that the CAP swallows half the entire EU budget
at the present time and the arable sector, in
turn, eats up almost half of CAP spending, then
it becomes apparent why discussions on cereal
farming tend to dominate debates on reform of
the CAP.
UK cereal growers are faced with a real crisis
at the moment. Prices for feed wheat, for example,
have fallen from £120/t in January 1996 to around
£77/t today. This is of course related to the
strength of the pound, making British cereals
not only more expensive, but also reducing the
value of EU intervention prices.
Furthermore, the EU cereal market is over-supplied,
and weather conditions in the UK have affected
quality. As with the sheep sector, the fact that
political instability in Russia coincided with
the economic downturn in the Asian market further
aggravated the problem.
GLOBAL TRENDS IN CEREALS
Global food policy has been driven by the need
to cater for an ever increasing population: According
to a report from the International Food Policy
Research Institute in Washington, D.C. in 1961
the world produced 867 million tonnes of cereals
for 3.1 billion people. In 1995, global cereal
production was 1.9 billion tonnes for 5.7 billion
people. At the same time, prices for major cereals
declined. Between 1982 and 1995 real wheat prices
declined by 28%, rice prices by 42% and corn prices
by 43%.
Despite a slowdown in general cereal production
growth, demand and trade in the cereal markets
indicate a strengthening of the market (at an
average rate of 1.4% annually from 1993 to 2010).
Among the developed countries Australia is expected
to experience the biggest growth in cereal production
levels with 2%, followed by the United States
while Japan and Western Europe face the lowest
production growth at -0.7% and 0.5% respectively.
Reasons for the depression can mainly be sought
in policy induced scaling back of farm-price support
programmes in favour of direct payments to farmers,
as well as the collapse of communism in Eastern
European countries and the former Soviet Union.
However, there is the fear that adverse weather
patterns might increase and endanger the food
production in many low-income regions. Furthermore,
rapid income growth and increasing urbanisation
will cause a shift in diets from coarse grains
to rice and secondary shifts from rice to wheat.
Increased incomes will also encourage a strong
growth in meat consumption leading in turn to
more grain production for animal feed. Around
84% of this increase in global cereal and meat
demand between 1993 and 2010 will come from the
developing countries. By 2010 developing countries
will account for 63% of global cereal demand and
58% of global meat demand. China alone will account
for 23% and India 13%. The largest increase will
be for maize for animal feed, followed by wheat.
Per capita food consumption of all cereals to
2010 is expected to be virtually constant, with
slightly declining consumption of cereals in higher-income
countries. Countries of the former Soviet Union
and Eastern European countries are expected to
be the biggest per capita wheat consumers among
the developed countries.
Partially offsetting the increase in demand
from developing countries, Eastern Europe and
the former Soviet Union will shift from significant
cereal importers to substantial exporters. The
United States is expected to capture a major share
of the 38% increase in cereal export. Western
Europe also has the potential significantly to
increase its exports, but substantial gains in
crop productivity and efficiency will be required.
RURAL TRANSPORT
Transport is of vital importance to rural Scotland
and to the agricultural industry as a whole. Rural
people make roughly the same number of journeys
as people living in urban areas, but they cover
almost three times the distance and have little
alternative but to use the car. For that reason
it is quite iniquitous to see this Labour Government
relentlessly increasing transport costs through
additional fuel taxes, car road tax increases
and a welter of proposals for road tolls, swingeing
parking charges and other anti-car policies. The
soaring cost of a barrel of oil on world markets,
which has gone from $10 a barrel to around $30
a barrel in the past 12 months, has added to our
woes.
LAND REFORM
On top of all this we have a devolved Parliament
at Holyrood who see their priorities not to implement
immediate and drastic action to save our agricultural
industry. On the contrary, they wish to introduce
a Land Reform Bill and a Bill to Ban Fox Hunting,
which will further destroy jobs and investment
in rural Scotland and serve to underscore the
Lib/Lab coalition's lack of understanding and
lack of sympathy with the countryside.
Indeed, every survey of public opinion has shown
that land reform is at the bottom of people's
list of concerns, trailing well behind health,
education, law and order and all the usual things.
Why then, is Labour so determined to make land
reform their number one priority in the new Parliament?
Their agenda appears to be driven by a very few
specific problems in the past with bad landlords,
almost exclusively in the north-west Highlands.
There is very little evidence of any real problems
anywhere else in Scotland and yet the whole country
will face upheaval when the Land Reform proposals
become law.
The idea that land will in the future be confiscated
from so-called 'bad landlords' and that local
community groups will be the judge of who these
bad landlords may be, reeks of Stalinism and sounds
like a throw back to Mao Tse Deng's Cultural Revolution.
The rural economy is in a fragile enough state
at the present time without recourse to this dogmatic
socialism.
THE FUTURE OF FARMING
I trust, following this relentless picture of
doom and gloom, that you will be agog for news
of what the future might hold, or indeed, whether
or not there can be a future for farmers. I will
spend the last part of this presentation looking
at the failed Seattle WTO talks, Agenda 2000 and
the proposed enlargement of the EU, setting out
my own views on how these major policy areas will
affect our future livelihoods.
THE OBJECTIVES OF THE CAP
As you know, when the CAP was first set up,
its main focus was to reach the goal of increasing
agricultural productivity, to ensure that the
citizens of the EU could be properly fed and never
again have to confront food rationing. Unfortunately,
the CAP was a victim of its own success, so much
so, that before long it was called upon to manage
production surpluses in most sectors. The first
response was to clamp down on supply by means
of quantitative restrictions or quotas. More recently,
the CAP has embarked on a new approach based on
two core elements: lowering institutional prices
for key products and offsetting the impact of
these cuts on producer incomes by means of direct
payments.
AGENDA 2000
In the 1992 Madrid Summit and more recently
at the Berlin Summit in March of last year, further
refinements of this policy were put in place,
the main objectives of which seek to promote:
- A competitive agricultural sector which is
capable of exploiting the opportunities existing
on world markets without excessive subsidy,
while at the same time ensuring a fair standard
of living for the agricultural community;
- Production methods, which are safe, capable
of supplying quality products that meets consumer
demand;
- Diversity, reflecting the rich tradition
of European food production;
- The maintenance of vibrant rural communities,
capable of generating employment opportunities
for the rural population;
- An agricultural sector that is sustainable
in environmental terms, contributes to the preservation
of natural resources and the natural heritage
and maintains the visual amenity of the countryside;
- A simpler, more comprehensible policy which
establishes clear dividing lines between the
decisions that have to be taken jointly at Community
level and those which should remain in the hands
of the Member States;
- An agricultural policy, which establishes
a clear connection between public support and
the range of services which society as a whole,
receives from the farming community.
In short, the new policy seeks to support the
maintenance of the specific model of agriculture,
which is a key part of Europe's heritage, one
that recognises the multifunctional nature of
European agriculture and the wide range of benefits
it produces.
Now it is all very well setting out such lofty
objectives, but it is another thing entirely ensuring
that they are delivered. As I pointed out in some
detail in the earlier part of my presentation,
many of these objectives are not being met, certainly
in Scotland and the UK as a whole. The long-term
solution has to be found in the market. The market
is King. The market drives everything. For too
long we have been lulled by a sea of subsidies
into producing commodities which the market did
not want or was already over supplied with. Those
days are gone. Farmers must identify niche or
global marketing opportunities and produce goods,
which the consumer wants or needs. They can do
this individually or collectively, through marketing
co-operatives, producer groups or similar organisations.
A
genda 2000 can best be viewed as a means of utilising
taxpayers money to cushion the rapid downsizing
of the farming sector to a lean and mean, market
machine. Farming cannot survive unless it is able
to meet the challenges of enlargement and globalisation.
With half the world starving, the EU must find,
in this age of high technology, ways of delivering,
storing and distributing food to the developing
nations as an alternative to cash aid and in a
way which does not undermine the ability of these
nations to help themselves out of poverty and
decline. This could provide a solid foundation
for our highly productive agricultural sector.
However, for the rest of us, the challenge will
be to match supply to consumer demand, the age-old
law of economics. No longer can we rely on absurd
policies such as 'set-aside' to reward farmers
for non- production. Nor, against the background
of the Commission always arguing that the CAP
must not become an obstacle to enlargement, can
we seriously consider it likely that the new extended
EU, with 21 or more Member States, will embrace
a continuation of the present system of income
support, intervention and quotas?
In the Central and East European Countries prior
to the current pre-transition era, agriculture
was heavily supported with a diverse range of
measures including market price support, several
kinds of direct payments to input subsidies, investment
aids and tax exemptions. These support measures
were drastically curtailed following the introduction
of trade liberalisation and privatisation, and
indeed in some countries, such as the Baltics
and Bulgaria, agricultural production is now contributing
to net taxation. Input prices in the CECs, such
as for energy and fertiliser, have tended to move
towards world market levels, while agricultural
output prices have tended to stagnate or rise
much less in the face of falling demand.
But we should not fear enlargement. Most countries
of Central and Eastern Europe, with the exception
of Hungary and Bulgaria, have become net importers
of food in recent years, as their economies grow,
and their most important trading partner is the
EU with over 55% of market share. The projection
for the main commodities from the CECs, show that
surplus production of cereals, oilseeds and pigmeat
will continue until the year 2003, with the export
of these surpluses mostly having to be at world
market prices. The traditional dairy surplus meanwhile
will be somewhat reduced, while for beef and poultry,
the region will be more or less self-sufficient.
WTO NEGOTIATIONS
The WTO Round of talks which fell apart in disarray
in Seattle last December set out with the specific
remit of achieving "substantial progressive reductions
in support and protection." However, anti-globalisation
protesters effectively stopped the conference
from reaching any agreement.
Already we have witnessed flashpoints between
the US and the EU over such issues as the Banana
War, Hormone-Treated Beef and the looming Rum
War. Clearly we cannot continue in this manner,
with the US applying the nuclear option of imposing
massive import tariffs on arbitrary lists of European
commodities, in retaliation for what they regard
as unfair EU protectionist policies favouring
the Caribbean against South America in the case
of bananas and rum, and discriminating against
the importation of American beef.
The Uruguay Round introduced the principle of
the Amber, Green and Blue Boxes, as defining the
diverse domestic agricultural support measures,
which the WTO disciplines were supposed to refine.
Amber Box measures are forms of market price supports,
together with direct payments directly linked
to the volume of production, while Green Box measures
comprise support with no links to production such
as insurance schemes and environmental payments.
Blue Box measures cover area and headage payments
applied to limited amounts of production such
as the EU's arable area payments and livestock
premiums.
The EU already has considerable scope for further
reductions in the Amber Box. However, the abolition
of the Blue Box exemption would severely reduce
the scope for further commitments, unless the
EU responds to pressure on the Blue Box by decoupling
payments from production - e.g. by basing them
on historic rather than current production - so
as to make them eligible for Green Box exemption.
The WTO negotiations are of vital importance
to UK and world agriculture, the food industry
and consumers. The talks must resume because their
outcome will affect the international environment
under which agricultural and food products are
traded. It will also influence the future development
of the CAP. We must all play an active role to
ensure that the UK and Scottish interests are
safeguarded and promoted.
Farmers will have to accept that future radical
reforms will result in a more progressive application
of market forces to agriculture. In the meantime,
urgent action must be taken to bring this government
to its senses. Ben Gill and Jim Walker are working
hard, but they need to grab more headlines. It's
a sad day when a blonde bimbo with a chocolate
éclair can capture the attention of the media
more effectively at an NFU meeting than our union
leadership.
We must fight back and fight back hard. Labour
was rocked in the buy-election in Wales when rural
voters pushed them into fourth place. They were
shattered when their vote collapsed in Ayr and
a Tory farmer, John Scott, romped home to victory.
That is the kind of language they understand.
They don't like the feel of cold steel and each
time we plunge a knife into the heart of the pathetic
Lib/Lab alliance at Holyrood, it sends strong
signals down to Westminster.
When a government, which would rather squander
£300 million on a new Scottish Parliament or £1
billion on a temporary Dome in London, than mount
a rescue package for the devastated farming industry
confronts rural Britain, then the message is clear.
We must use every means at our disposal to fight
back until we have kicked this government out
and sent them back to their cosseted urban roots
to ponder the error of their ways.
SUMMARY
So in summary, let me outline the core objectives
for the way ahead:
- The Government must quickly implement a BSE
Exit Strategy, designed to revive consumer confidence
in British beef worldwide. As part of that strategy
we must demand the removal of the 560 kgs. Weight
limit on OTMS cattle.
- The Government must quickly apply for agrimonetary
compensation from the European Commission.
- In partnership with the NFU, the private
sector, the European Commission and the Scottish
Executive, we must implement new and innovative
plans to train farmers in agri-marketing and
the creation of producer groups and farm co-operatives.
- There must be a massive and sustained blitz
on red tape, which is strangling the industry.
- We must support mandatory testing of carcasses
for BSE across the EU, together with the introduction
of labelling, not only for beef, but also for
all meats, to ensure that products from countries,
which operate lower welfare or hygiene standards,
are clearly labelled.
- We must demand a guarantee from the Government
that modulation money will go to farmers for
retirement schemes and hill farm support, rather
than be squandered on politically correct rural
development schemes such as community centre
renovations.
- We must demand that the government agrees
to a re-structuring package for the UK pig industry,
including an element of debt-relief.
|
