Sunak has still to win over key group as sector plunges into crisis - analysis by Katherine Forster
Sunak must still win over one key group before the General Election
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‘I’ve got your back’.
That’s what Rishi Sunak told farmers in Birmingham today.
Prime Ministers don’t usually grace the National Farmers’ Union’s annual conference. But Rishi Sunak moved Cabinet to Monday so he could be there today. The last PM to address them was Gordon Brown way back in 2008.
There’s an election coming, and the Tories are worried about not just the Red Wall, but losing seats in usually safe Conservative seats in the country. They currently hold 96 of the most rural seats in England, but a recent poll by Survation and the Country Land & Business Association suggests they could be left with just 43 after the next election. Labour could take 51.
Rishi Sunak addressed the NFU in Birmingham today
PA
Little wonder then that the Prime Minister took the time to woo the rural vote.
Thanking his audience for feeding us, he said ‘We don’t celebrate you enough.’ He burnished his country credentials as a Yorkshire MP, saying he’d pledged to champion agriculture right from the start. He talked of walking the fields of the Dales, visiting farms, even milking a cow.
The warm words were backed with pledges to maintain the farming budget for England at £2.4billion a year, with the largest ever grants - some £427million in the next financial year.
£220million is earmarked for technology and innovation, including robotics to help harvest crops. Worker shortages have been a problem since Brexit, with the supply of cheap EU labour drying up; automation could be transformative.
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The PM pledged to maintain the farming budget for England at £2.4bn a year
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Sunak pledged to slash red tape too, so that farmers can diversify with farm shops, sporting facilities and such like.
Millions watched Jeremy Clarkson’s battles to open a farm shop and then a restaurant in his wildly successful series ‘Clarkson’s Farm’.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has put food security back in the spotlight, Sunak said, pledging ‘never to take food security for granted’, and introducing a new Food Security Index. He acknowledged too the challenges coming from climate change.
The stranglehold of supermarkets squeezing down what they pay suppliers is a massive issue. Dairy farmers, for instance, are often producing milk at a loss. So Sunak committed to ensuring farmers get a fair price for their food, with legislation coming in the dairy sector initially, followed by the pig sector and others.
It all went down well enough in the hall. In contrast to last year, when the then Environment Secretary Therese Coffey was booed.
But the NFU President Minette Batters and farmers asking questions from the floor stressed that farming is in crisis. Soaring prices for fuel and fertiliser, climate change, supermarket power, Brexit barriers and trade deals are all taking their toll.
The warm words and thanks are one thing. But really changing the lot of farmers in the UK is quite another.
Will these measures be enough to make a substantial difference, and persuade farmers to stick with the Tories rather than roll the dice for change and a Labour government?
We’ll find out later this year.
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