It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Sarah Dyke).
It was 40 years ago, at just about this moment, that I asked a gorgeous farmer’s daughter from the Isles of Scilly if she would go out on a date with me. She said yes, and a couple of years later we were married, so for 40 years this very night I have been connected to the farming community. It has been an incredible time and I am incredibly grateful to her for sticking with me through all that time. Members of my wider family are still farming on the Isles of Scilly and many of them work in agriculture in Cornwall. Some members of the family even farm in that strange place called Devon. Over that time, they have given me a real insight into farming, the life of farmers and the challenges they face.
In Cornwall, we are blessed to have some of the very best farms and farmers that this country has to offer. When we start naming farmers, there is always a risk that we will upset those we do not name, but I have had the privilege of spending time on dairy farms with
Andrew Brewer in Fraddon and with Martin and Bridget Whell in Golant, getting up at 5 am and experiencing what it is like to milk cows with them. I have visited James Kittow the grazier at Kilhallon just outside St Blazey, who not only rears his own cattle but sees the whole process through, butchering them himself and selling them to many hotels and restaurants. I have visited St Ewe, which produces some of the finest eggs in the country, and Will and Kate Martin at Treway farm, who specialise in free-range turkeys for Christmas—and very good they are too. Tomorrow, we shall be hosting a Taste of Cornwall here in Parliament to celebrate St Piran’s day. Everyone is welcome to come to the Jubilee Room tomorrow afternoon and sample the produce of some of the people I have just mentioned, and I encourage them to do so.
It has troubled me for many years that we seem to have set up a dichotomy between farmers and the environment, as though they were somehow at odds with each other. In my experience, farmers understand the need to protect our environment more than anyone else, because their livelihoods depend on it more than anyone else’s. They want to enhance the natural environment, and not just so that they can continue to be productive themselves. Many of those running family farms want to pass on a viable business to their children and grandchildren, and if they destroy the environment in the meantime, they will not have a productive farm to pass on. We need to kill the idea that farmers are the enemy of environmental protection. They really are not, and we need to work with them because, as I have said, they understand the need to protect the environment better than any of us.
All the farmers I have spoken to have broadly welcomed the schemes that the Government have introduced to replace the common agricultural policy, such as the sustainable farming incentive and the environmental goals that it seeks to introduce. However, whatever schemes we introduce, we must not lose sight of the fact that the main focus must be on food production. Sometimes I think we have got that balance wrong, and many of the farmers I speak to feel that at times the focus has shifted too much from food production to the environment.
The problem with much Government policy is that things are done for all the right reasons but produce unintended consequences. In Cornwall in particular, landowners are taking land back from tenants because they make more money by taking it out of production and producing non-food items on it than by continuing to let their farms. The Government have said that they are looking and listening carefully to ensure that they have got the policy right, but I suggest to the Minister that we should also be careful not to produce outcomes that we do not intend.
We must never forget that every farm is a business. It is a lifestyle, and it might even be described as a calling, but at its heart it is a business whose owners simply want to produce food at a price that enables them to make money. Most farmers I know do not want to be incredibly wealthy; they just want to make enough money to live on, and to run their farms well. We need to be honest with the British public, and say that all the support that we give to farmers does not mean we are subsidising them. What we are doing is subsidising food, and subsidising households. It could be said on occasion that we are subsidising supermarkets.
Most farmers I speak to would rather be able to sell their produce at a price that gives them a profit than be caught up in a complex world of subsidies, grants and continual applications. I do not foresee a day any time soon when we will be able to get away from that, but I would love to see the day when we can move away from the continual subsidies and live in a world where farmers are able simply to make an honest profit and sell their produce at a price that reflects the cost that they incur in its production.
I know that others have touched on this, but one of the biggest fears that my local beef and dairy farmers have at the moment is bovine tuberculosis. We have done very well, in Cornwall as in other parts of the south-west, in driving down cases through the combination of measures that the Government have introduced, but at the heart of that has been the badger cull. Farmers are worried that we will move away from that without replacing it with measures that will be equally effective in driving down badger numbers. One of their greatest fears is the prospect that, one day, a Labour Government will abandon the cull without an effective replacement, and the examples we have heard of what is happening in Wales reinforce that fear.
I ask the Minister to reassure farmers that this Government will continue an effective policy of controlling TB, and will not simply abandon the cull for ideological reasons until we are entirely confident that we have other measures, such as vaccines, to keep on top of this terrible disease. Visiting farms that have experienced TB has brought this home to me. It is not just an economic tragedy for the farmers who have to see their herds destroyed; it takes a huge emotional toll as well. That creates a world of uncertainty, and many of them are struggling with that now. Farmers have asked me to raise the matter of high-frequency bovine electronic IDs. I know that there has been a consultation on that, but I understand that the Government have not yet responded. Farmers want us to urge the Government to introduce high-frequency rather than low-frequency IDs, because that would make their lives much easier, saving them both time and money. A response from the Government as soon as possible would be greatly welcomed.
I am pleased that the Government are actively encouraging people to buy more locally. Cornwall has done very well in that regard. During the pandemic, people became much more aware of supply chains and the source of their food. Some great farm shops have opened throughout Cornwall. It is important for people to have that connection, especially in rural areas, but those in many urban areas would also do well to understand where their food comes from. The more local it is, the better.
This has also been mentioned, but I wholeheartedly support better labelling, not only to help people to identify the source of their food but to make clear its environmental impact or the food miles involved. I hear some strange arguments, such as the suggestion that eating an avocado from Madagascar is somehow better than eating a steak from the farm down the road. To my mind, that is complete nonsense. If we actually labelled food to make people realise how far it has travelled and the real impact before it arrives on their plates, maybe people would make informed choices and choose to buy and consume locally sourced food.
Before I wind up, I want to put in a final word for the horticulture sector. My right hon. Friend the Member for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice) made the point that, in Cornwall, it is not just about livestock; we also have a very important horticulture sector, which we need to continue to support. I was delighted when the Government eventually agreed to include horticulture and, indeed, flower pickers in the seasonal agricultural worker scheme. It is so important that we continue to do that and to make sure that the sector has the manpower it needs to bring in crops as they become ready.
As other colleagues have mentioned, this sector has a great future in the UK. The Eden Project recently opened some big greenhouses that are heated from its on-site geothermal plant, and it is now looking to grow virtually all the vegetables and salad produce for its restaurants. There is a great opportunity for more of this type of thing across the UK, so that we become more self-sufficient in home-grown food and do not need to import quite so much.
I am delighted that we have been able to have this debate today and that I have been able to share a few thoughts. I believe passionately that this Government and the Conservative party are on the side of farmers. We get what farmers need. We may not have got absolutely everything right over the last few years, but I believe we have been trying to do the right thing. I am confident that we will continue to back farmers and to provide them with the policies and support they need to ensure that they can go on being productive and feeding our country.
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