Customers Must Choose Between Subsidies And Much Higher Food Prices
As farmers in the South East contemplate life without their EU subsidies following the referendum, rural affairs specialists at Bruton Knowles are calling on the government to accelerate work on a replacement British Agricultural Policy.
Naomi Quick from the firm’s Guildford office said the threat to UK agriculture in leaving the EU is higher than in any other industry. Many farms are critically reliant on their subsidies and she has issued a rallying call for consumers to get behind farmers. Subsidies represent nearly 60% of average farm income, but there is a difference by farm type. Mixed farms receive 96% subsidy while poultry farms have about 6%.
CLA, which advocates for rural land owners, estimated there are around 16 million acres of farmland, which represents 37% UK farmland, under environmental management schemes that get government subsidies.
Quick said farmers need to be reassured that a replacement programme — in the form of a British Agricultural Policy — can be hammered out soon.
“The potential impact of complete subsidy removal on many sectors of the agricultural industry could be huge," she said.
The hardest hit would be the upland, tenanted and small family farmers, many of whom rely on subsidies to make ends meet.
Quick said England already exports to over 200 countries but Europe is still its biggest market. Negotiating and maintaining strong trade deals is vital to the future of British Agriculture.
Quick said there are many examples around the world where farms operate with no or little subsidy, which brings into question whether heavily subsidised agriculture has in fact actually suppressed output in the UK.
“If the consumer wants cheap food in the UK then they are going to have to support farmers. If they do not support them with some sort of subsidy food prices will inevitably have to go up in order to support the rural economy and provide jobs. Without any kind of support many farmers in the uplands, tenanted and small family farm sectors will inevitably go out of business,” she said.
