By Charles Bourns, broiler grower
The other night I went to a meeting held by my new local MP who invited along the chairman of the EFRA Committee, whose job is to hold DEFRA to account. His name is Alistair Carmichael, and he has been an MP for 24 years and is a farmer from Orkney.
He was very refreshing, and what I found pleasing was that the NFU’s campaign against inheritance tax he felt was slowly winning. As he pointed out, Labour MPs represent more rural constituencies than any other party and these are the people who can and probably will change the Government’s position. He also pointed out it will be a long battle as he felt a vote will not happen on it until October time. So, let us keep the pressure up, especially if you have a Labour MP where you are.
My main concern at the moment is inflation. We have had our costs rise by about 6% since October last year and I expect another rise in costs after 1 April with the new National Insurance rate which is nearer to 3% than 1.2% according to the cost increase on the salaries at NFSCO of which I am chairman. I am just hoping my customer recognises this and we have a price increase in our liveweight to compensate for these unavoidable increases. I could probably move the farm to the free market but I did this many moons ago and we nearly ended up bankrupt. I know we are living in different times and I know chicken are short in Europe and the USA but we happen to like growing the Oakham Gold chicken as it suits our farm, so fingers crossed my loyalty is not misplaced and I do not end up living by the law of sod.
I watched the virtual poultry session, which replaced the usual break out session at the NFU AGM and whilst I found it interesting I really missed meeting the other delegates. The NFU did get together some interesting speakers and it was good to see that the Europeans are under the same pressures. Although they did say that farms are investing heavily in technology to replace labour so I do not know if they get grants.