Andy Burnham’s new support package for British farmers has been branded a “drop in the ocean” as the industry is set to suffer “well into the Spring”.
Speaking to GB News, farmer and former immigration minister Sir Robert Goodwill admitted that “things are looking pretty grim” after facing the driest July on record.
“I think it’s probably been the hardest summer for British farming in a generation. So many challenges for those in arable farming, livestock farming, doing a mixture of the two, on every front they can see challenges.
“So it’s really important that I’m here and I’m listening and announcing some help in these difficult times.”
Outlining the current situation facing Britain’s farmers, Sir Robert said for many, the problems “won’t go away” even with the support package.
He said: “Looking at our grain store, we had a particularly disastrous crop with spring barley. The winter crops were slightly better, but the only good news was the oilseed rape harvest was reasonably good, but things are looking pretty grim.
Sir Robert Goodwill has declared Andy Burnham’s support package for farmers is a ‘drop in the ocean’
|
GB NEWS / PA
“And of course, the problem is for livestock farmers, these problems won’t go away.
“We’ve finished our harvest as a small heap of grain in the shed, but the livestock people are already feeding their winter silage, and many of the sheep farmers in this part of the world would normally have been planting stubble turnips at this time of year, to be able to grow and provide some grazing for sheep, and it’s just too dry for those to actually come.
“So we’ve had a bad harvest, we’re going to have to try and financially cope with that, particularly as our income input costs have been going up. Fertiliser, machinery, tractor, diesel, all of those have gone up and the price of grain hasn’t gone up a great deal to compensate at all.”
Asked whether the support package will help farmers “at all” to cope, Sir Robert admitted it is a “drop in the ocean”.
Andy Burnham has unveiled a £65million support package for farmers
|
PAHe said: “To be fair, they have done some things, they’re allowing farmers to graze the land that we’ve paid to grow bird food and pollen on farmers allowed to graze that.
“But what we’d like to see actually is action on making it easier for farmers to become more resilient.
“Farmers are looking at maybe spending £45,000 just to get planning permission for a reservoir. We’d like to make smaller reservoirs with permitted development so farmers can get on and build reservoirs so we can more resilient.”
Sir Robert added: “And I think they also need to look again at this fertiliser tax, the border carbon adjustment mechanism, which will mean that fertiliser will be more expensive in the future because we’ll be taxed to bring it in.
Sir Robert told GB News that farmers are set to continue facing hardships ‘until the spring’
|
GB NEWS
“We don’t have our own indigenous fertiliser production anymore, we rely on imports of ammonia to make fertiliser here, so there are other things that the Government can be looking at.”
Sir Robert warned that farmers will be having “difficult conversations” with their banks as they could be struggling “well into the spring” with their farms.
He concluded: “In the meantime, a lot of farmers will be scratching their heads and having very difficult conversations with their bank managers.
“And I think in terms of the livestock production, things are going to go on well into the spring because of the problems that we’ve had with such a disastrous year for the livestock sector in particular. It isn’t over for them yet by any means.”