Island Life Magazine Ltd December 2007/January 2008 | Page 60
life
COUNTRYSIDE, WILDLIFE & FARMING
Changing Face of
the Countryside?
By Tony Ridd - [email protected]
‘Why Beef and Sheep Farming
Matters’, is the latest campaign
being run by the NFU
throughout the country. It
highlights the decline in grazing
animals in our countryside
which is having an immediate
knock-on effect to the quality
and appearance of our
landscape. Matthew Legge,
‘County Secretary for the Isle
of Wight NFU’ takes time to
talk with Tony Ridd about this
very important campaign.
We started off by hitting
some pretty serious figures,
with Matthew telling me
60
that over the last ten years,
the national sheep flock has
fallen by 24% and the beef
herd by 9%, leaving the UK
only 78% sufficient in Beef
and 89% sufficient in Lamb
and Mutton. With the current
economics in this sector,
there is a chance that these
losses will accelerate. “If
something doesn’t change in
the next two-three years we
will see a dramatic reduction
in livestock numbers and an
increase in land that appears
to be abandoned” he said.
This is the first year since
the common agricultural
policy was introduced in 1962,
that there is no compulsory
set-a-side, yet we still have
many empty fields across the
island. Farmers like the rest
of us have to make a profit
to survive, and because of
this they either have to be
supported by subsidies, or
get a realistic price for their
produce. Without subsidies
being linked to the production
of food, there is a need for
any production to be justified
by the “farmgate” price (the
amount the farmer receives).
Historically, the farmer
has been able to sell beef,
for example, at a price of
£2.10/kg when the cost of
production was £2.55/kg
because the difference has been
made up by a direct subsidy
payment. With this no longer
being the case, the farmgate
price must exceed the cost of
production to make any sense
of continuing in production.
The “Why Farming Matters”
campaign highlights the
growing gap between farmgate
prices and retail prices (the
amount the consumer pays).
Island Life - www.isleofwight.net