The fox dressed as the lamb fools the farming world again
Today Caroline Spelman addressed the leaders of the farming community to set the years agenda for food production in the UK. Speaking at the Oxford Farming Conference she outlined her vision for the future of food production and farming in this country.
As an ex-Commodity Secretary for the NFU and director of a biotechnology company her agenda has been strongly focused on large scale industrial agriculture, similar in type to proposed at the 3500 cow herd in Nocturn.
Her speech set out to show how free trade, care for the environment and elimination of subsidies could all combine to produce a flourishing food industry. But her vision is deeply flawed. Organisers of the rival conference The Oxford Real Farming Conference have spoken out against this thin veil of apparent change.
Sir Crispin Tickell, chair of todays ORFC said
Agriculture is special. We have to balance the public interest against reliance on market forces. There is no such thing as a free market in food or anything else. Governments have a major responsibility in determining the degree and character of regulation and right incentives and disincentives
Conference organisers Graham Harvey and Colin Tudge share his concerns.
Graham Harvey said,
The only true long term solution to food production anywhere in the world is farming based on sound biology. The idea that we must choose between farming and the natural environment is fundamentally outdated and wrong headed.
Today at the Oxford Real Farming Conference we have three working farmers telling us how they are producing healthy, high quality food at the same time as fostering a rich, biodiverse countryside
Colin Tudge said,
This is nothing more than another attempt to sell is the same old crude agricultural strategy, based on neo-liberal dogma.
Talk of innovation means further reliance on high-input, high-technology, to prop up a flawed and faulty model of farming.
Increasing competitiveness and reworking import tariffs suggests we should grow our food overseas where labour is cheapest. This is not in the third worlds interest and neither is it in the interest of the British public.