You can hardly call Labour’s agricultural policies ‘competent’
I am lucky enough to have been to a few Ryder Cups over the years. My memories are of great sporting occasions; the American fans were fun, loud but polite and appreciative of good golf from both sides.
Watching the event last weekend, and the abuse of Rory McIlroy and his wife above all other Europeans, triggered just one thought – welcome to the United States Donald Trump has created. Loud, opinionated, boorish, lacking any class or manners are his personality traits.
Sadly he has passed these on as positives to be admitted and emulated as the spirit of a new America by those who put him in power. He has turned some of the friendliest and genial people in the world into what can only be described as a boorish embarrassment to a great country. In doing so he has made America unpopular which, along with the Trump tariffs as a political instrument, does not suit a trading nation.
All American exporters are paying the price – particularly Trump supporting farmers in the Midwest grain states that have lost the export markets their prices depended on.
Their loss has been a gain for Europe and the southern hemisphere. All very well you may say, but what has it to do with agriculture? Well this may stand you well in a quiz some night. Samuel Ryder, who created his cup as a golf enthusiast to see the best of British and American golf pitted against each other, was a successful seed merchant in the east of England.
He died in 1936, but he would be amazed today that his idea for a bit of fun has become one of the world’s biggest sporting franchises. If he had witnessed the unsporting behaviour of the American supporters and some of its team, he would be rightly appalled. This is the season for party conferences and the Labour party event in Liverpool was in stark contrast to the post-election event last year.
We had a prime minister battling for his political life.
The election is a long way off and the best thing Labour can do, from the luxury of being in government, is demonstrate competence.
Competence is not a word that could be used to describe its policies in agriculture.
Strip away the green rhetoric, initially put in place by the Conservatives to out-green the EU and strip away any advantages of Brexit, and farming is a forgotten sector. This is frustrating for farmers and the economy, as it is a sector with real economic potential coupled to an ability to deliver food security and the healthy food the government says it wants.
Farmers were at the conference in Liverpool, saying they wanted to be food producers and not diversify away from that role.
With protests over the inheritance tax changes attracting support, there is a danger this becomes the single issue with the wider challenges eclipsed.
Win or lose on agricultural property relief – and with a tax raising budget coming the odds are on lose – it remains economically perverse.
However unless politicians can be persuaded to find a new agricultural policy around food production, the APR argument could become one about rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic.
If we allow politicians to ignore the potential of agriculture, young people will not want to go into the industry. In that context the APR debate is academic. This gives us cause to again look with envy towards farmers in the EU. Brussels is making much of its priorities for young farmers’ support, but this week it unveiled ambitious plans for a sector all but forgotten by UK politicians – the livestock industry.
Here the mantra is that vegetarianism is the way ahead – although it is stuck at around five per cent of the population – while livestock farming is deemed bad for the environment. In reality it is a key part of delivering a thriving, bio-diverse countryside.
Brussels is traditionally better at targets than delivery, but it generally gets part of the way there. It has launched plans for a strategy for livestock farming to deliver a “resilient sector” as a key priority.
It says it wants to deliver a “new competitive model based on innovation-driven productivity”.
The aim is to overcome long standing “structural weaknesses” that have bedevilled the livestock industry for decades.
Words like that from any politician here are impossible to even imagine.