FFA lobbies Stormont for a bill on farmgate prices: cost of production as a minimum, plus inflation-linked margin

.

William Taylor (Farmers for Action, Northern Ireland) writes:.

Speaking at Westminster

Due to two decades of increasing financial pressure on farmgate prices from corporate food retailers, food wholesalers, processors and others, agriculture, the backbone industry of Northern Ireland, is currently functioning with one arm tied behind its back.

Northern Ireland farmers and rural traders are short of finance; staff and farmer numbers are contracting alarmingly.

Farmers for Action has begun a campaign to drum up support for the Agriculture Committee at Stormont to put forward a bill for legislation on farmgate prices so that farmers would receive a minimum of the cost of production plus a margin inflation linked for their produce.  If the free market rises then they would receive more for their produce, but when it falls the safety net would always kick in..

Brussels in 2010 acknowledged that food security is top of the agenda and that food producers need a financial safety net.

• This legislation would force the corporates to lower their profits by being forced to pay farmers fairly for their produce whilst still leaving then to compete with each other;
• Therefore consumers would not have to pay any more for their food other than normal inflationary increases;
• Long term this would ensure food security by ensuring farm viability and therefore avoiding expensive imports of food that Britain is quite capable of producing. .

A whole range of jobs would be created due to this legislation, many of which would be highly skilled professional productive jobs on farms, on average In Northern Ireland one job per farm, making 45,000 in all.

.A further 15,000 jobs could come from the food industry within seven years, not to mention knock-on jobs and there would be many.  Profitable farmers buy on average from 123 different suppliers of all types, from tags, concrete, veterinary products, to fertilizer, machinery, stationary, computer systems and so on..

Many farmers, their spouses and family members work in cities and towns. If agriculture became profitable due to the proposed legislation many would relinquish their jobs and go back to full time farming – in turn freeing up jobs in towns and cities..

William ends persuasively: “US President Roosevelt could not get the United States out of recession in the 30s until he put money in farmers’ pockets”.

 .