After attending the first ever farm to fork summit at Downing Street two weeks ago (16 May) to hear and welcome the Prime Minister’s support for farmers throughout the United Kingdom, it was extremely worrying and disappointing to hear proposals emerging at the weekend on a voluntary price cap on food through the retailer network - a subject that was never raised nor discussed at the recent summit.
From the perspective of farmers and crofters, although voluntary at retailer level, this has implications and the genuine fear that this proposal will only lead to one thing and that is further pressure on the primary producer.
As a result of very tight margins; input costs for the likes of energy and fertiliser at very high levels and extreme losses being made in some of our food commodities, there is no room for any more pressure, or we will continue to see a further contraction in our industry. We have already seen that happening in our egg sector and our fruit and veg sector is also under severe strain because of high costs associated with labour and energy.
In the past month, every major retailer has already cut the retail price of milk and butter and that is working its way back to the farmgate for dairy farmers. It is also working its way into the retail inflation figures.
Calling for a voluntary cap on shop prices for some food staples while denying higher levels of energy relief for those who grow and store crops or rear produce run contrary to each other and simply increases the risk of a further reduction in production and makes food scarcity more inevitable. And this comes just a fortnight after a summit seeking to bolster the nation's food security.
If the Prime Minister is serious about supporting UK agriculture, then he must rethink this proposal or at least make it abundantly clear that any price cap enforced must have no impact on the opportunity for our farmers and crofters to get a fair return for the food they produce.
Fairness in the supply chain is something that the Prime Minister says he wants to see and the investigations into pigs, eggs and horticulture support that. Fairness starts by supporting and fairly rewarding those at the sharp end to maintain supply. As we have seen with eggs, fruit and vegetables, if there’s no supply due to a lack of profitability, then the rest very quickly falls apart and empty shop shelves become a reality.
We will be writing to the Prime Minister to make clear these points.