By Gary Ford, head of strategy and producer engagement, BFREPA
As we enter spring we are turning the corner with bird flu having seen only two cases in February (both backyard flocks) and no case in commercial poultry since 24 January. Of interest, by comparison, in the month of February last year we had 13 cases of bird flu. The watch word continues to be stringent biosecurity consistently applied at all times.
The feel-good factor that comes with spring and the longer days continues with various announcements by Defra involving the poultry sector. The return of the small grant scheme, the funding of a veterinary visit and SFI re-launch in June aimed at smaller farms are all feel good factors. The paid for veterinary visit is a real win and something that we missed out on for various reasons when it was lunched in the cattle and sheep sector 7/8 years ago. With vets being an integral part of our sector, together with a vet visit requirement in the Lion COP, this initiative is really welcome to take some cost, albeit modest, out of egg production. This was all part of the government’s action to ‘back farmers’ announced by Secretary of State Reynolds at the recent NFU Conference in Birmingham. The aim being to have profitable farm businesses delivering food security.
Food security was mentioned several times during the conference and the now familiar phrase of ‘food security is national security’ is being played back to government over their stance with Ukrainian egg entering the UK at lower standards. Ukrainian egg imports are seriously undermining UK egg producers and consequently our confidence. This at a time when government are consulting on banning colony cages – it would be morally wrong if they don’t apply such a reciprocal ban on imported eggs. If the proposed ban goes ahead then the cage-free alternatives of barn and free-range will have to find a home for circa 5.5m layers otherwise we risk contracting as a sector. Planning, availability of finance and farmer confidence all need to be aligned. The planning reform changes currently being consulted on promise some encouragement to agriculture and food production with comments such as ‘substantial weight’ should be given by planners to the ‘economic benefits of proposals for commercial development’ and, ‘in the case of farm and agricultural modernisation proposals, to benefits relating to domestic food production, animal welfare, and the environment’.
The point is that we need, from government, a coherent and consistent joined up food production strategy. One that reinforces the importance of British farmers and supports domestic food production and not the one step forward, two back that we have been seeing.