I have had the pleasure of regularly engaging with our local NFU on the best way forward for farming in our community. Our food and farming sectors generate over £120 billion for the UK economy every year. Agriculture has not been easy over the last few years, but I will always be on the side of farmers. In the last Parliament, we maintained the farming budget to support our food security. In England, this has supported farmers with a range of options to choose what works best for them, from business advice to new equipment, soil and nutrient management and hedgerow planting.
To continue backing our farmers, we will:
❱ Increase the UK-wide farming budget by £1 billion over the Parliament, ensuring it rises by inflation in every year. Farmers will be able to spend every extra penny on grants to boost domestic food production on top of maintaining our approach to Environmental Land Management Schemes. In England, nearly half of all farmers have now signed up to schemes, choosing what works best for their business to invest in food security and sustainable agriculture. We will build on work to date to ensure our schemes work for all farmers, from tenants to the uplands and beyond.
❱ Introduce a legally binding target to enhance our food security. The target will apply UK-wide alongside our UK Food Security Index, the first of its kind, helping us to determine where best to concentrate farming funds. This will also feed into the development of the Land Use Framework.
❱ Improve public sector procurement to deliver our goal that at least 50% of food expenditure is spent on food produced locally or to higher environmental production standards.
❱ Reform our planning system to deliver fast track permissions for the building of infrastructure on farms, such as glasshouses, slurry and grain stores, and small-scale reservoirs.
❱ Use our significant investment in R&D to prioritise cutting-edge technology in areas such as fertiliser and vertical farming.
❱ Stick to our plan to support the agricultural sector with the labour it needs to maintain our food security, while moving away from the reliance on seasonal migrant labour with a five-year visa tapered scheme, alongside clear investment in automation and promoting agri-food careers and skills.
❱ Always stand up for farmers when negotiating new trade deals. At the 2023 UK Farm to Fork Summit, an event which we will continue every year, we set out our commitments to ensure UK farming is at the heart of UK trade.
We will always look for the right deal for farmers. We will continue to support UK agri-food and drink attachés in our embassies abroad, pioneering new markets and new opportunities for our domestic food and drink industry.
