I welcome my hon. Friend’s intervention. I first met him at a farming industry event at a conference many years ago—probably when I was first selected as a parliamentary candidate. I will certainly continue to press my hon. Friend the Minister on that matter.
Income figures for 2014-15 from throughout the UK show the harvest down by 9%, with a 24% drop in general cropping, a 25% drop in income for pig farmers, a 20% drop for poultry farmers and a 29% drop for mixed farms, so the situation is bleak. Basic business sense says that no one will invest in a business when they have no idea what the return will be from one month to the next, and no one can expect a business to survive if they are consistently paid less than the cost of production. Yet that is the daily reality for large parts of the British farming industry. They persevere when any other business would pack up and go home. We cannot afford for British farmers to pack up. We must not ignore the threat to British producers.
For many farmers, the price they are being paid does not cover the cost of production. If that continues, we will see farms disappear and less food produced—indeed, we already have. We need to create an environment in which farmers are consistently paid a fair price so that they have the confidence to invest in their businesses, employ the workers they need and produce food and drink to meet UK demand and beyond. Why is that so important? Because British farmers play such a vital role, as I said earlier. They protect, maintain and preserve our natural environment. They provide jobs in farming, processing, engineering and tourism—some 3.8 million jobs in food and farming alone. They contribute £10 billion to the UK economy. In rural Cornwall, it is primarily our farmers who keep our Methodist churches open. Most importantly, our farmers feed the nation.
It is difficult to establish exactly how much of the food and drink that the UK needs is produced by UK farmers. The widely accepted figure currently stands at around 62%, but a recent National Farmers Union report suggests that as things stand, taking into account predicted UK population growth, it will drop to just over 50% when my children reach retirement age. The UK does not want to be in a position where we rely on exports for nearly half the daily food and drink we need. It does not have to be like that.
It is widely acknowledged that there is an opportunity for the UK to import less indigenous fruit and vegetables. The UK supplied only 23% of the fruit and vegetables it needed in 2014, yet frustration exists in the industry and further afield with what appears to be an inability to tackle the issue and maximise the potential of our food industry for the future. The National Farmers Union has done some very useful work in that regard, which the former Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my right hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire (Mr Paterson), reinforced in January 2014 when he said:
“By buying seasonal fruit and veg we can improve the nation’s health, help the environment and boost the economy…As British farmers and food producers, you know that we grow some of the best food in the world here, so why is 24% of the food eaten in the UK imported when it could be produced here? We have a top-class fruit and veg sector which produces everything from green beans to strawberries, yet we imported £8 billion of fruit and veg in 2012.”
It is in our interests to produce as much food as possible. If we want to ensure that good quality food continues to be available to us at a reasonable price, we must support our farmers.