NFU sees 'daily catalogue of despair'

By Environment Correspondent Alex Kirby

"You cannot describe the despair you come across from day to day", says Tim Bennett.

Mr Bennett, a deputy president of the National Farmers' Union, rears dairy and beef cattle near Carmarthen.

The farming crisis is hurting him. "I have lost tens of thousands of pounds in the last two years", he says. "And I am probably not making a profit now".

But it is his NFU work, and the contact that gives him with farmers worse off than himself, that brings home to him just how bad things are.

"Every day young farmers ring me up and say 'We're getting out' ", says Tim Bennett.

"We are losing the entrepreneurs and the technically proficient farmers of tomorrow. That is the real tragedy".

He rejects absolutely the popular image of most farmers as people not short of a pound or two. "I have met an awful lot of poor farmers", he says.

"This year in particular, I have met farmers in the depths of despair because they cannot afford to retire".

"They have to go on working as they cannot afford to buy a house to live in when they leave their farms".

Asking for a Fair Share

Tim Bennett accepts that, four or five years ago, farmers were getting probably the best prices they had ever seen.

"We do not expect to get back to those levels", he says. "But we do want a fair share of the profit that is being made".

"And one of our concerns is that, while our prices have fallen, the consumer price is static".

He puts the average price fall at about 30%.

"But dairy company profits, for instance, have increased considerably in the last eighteen months. That says it all".

NFU -- helping farmers through the storm

The NFU agrees with most other pundits about the causes of the crisis.

The strong pound lowers the prices paid to farmers, and also sucks in imports. BSE has wrought havoc, first for beef farmers, and now for sheep farmers too.

And the economic meltdown in Russia is catastrophic. Russia used to be the biggest market for British sheepskins and cattle hides.

It took 11% of the European Union's total agricultural production. But now it cannot begin to afford to.

Short-term help needed

The NFU is clear about what farmers need to rescue them from the crisis. It wants:

the government to give farming more priority

lower interest rates, with sterling weaker

intensified pressure to lift the ban on British beef

government and public support for British farm products.

That sounds like a coded plea for more money. It is. But Tim Bennett says it would not mean higher prices.

"We are looking for short-term help", he says. "The money is available in Brussels, and other governments are using it to help their farmers".

Who can afford cows now ?

"We need a package of emergency aid. It should go first to help beef and arable farmers".

"And support to hill and upland farmers has been cut by a third over the last two years. That needs restoring".

Wider Benefits

Mr Bennett says help for the farmers would benefit other people as well.

"It is tragic that it is not just the farmers who are hurting", he says.

"If they have no money, their suppliers are affected. Rural shopkeepers are reporting a 25% drop in takings".

"And we look after the countryside as well as producing food. If you are not making money you have none to spend on maintaining walls and hedges".

If that emergency package is not forthcoming, Mr Bennett thinks, the prospect is grim.

"We deliver good welfare standards", he says, "better than the rest of Europe. And our environmental standards are some of the best in the world".

"If we do not get help, we shall lose the ability to feed ourselves".

"Other countries will take our markets. And we do not see why we should give away our markets to competitors who fail to meet our standards".