Farming joins the protests over 2p fuel duty increase

FARMING organisations have added their voice to the growing protests against the proposed 2p fuel duty increase.

Both the NFU and the Farmers Union of Wales have put their weight behind a campaign by an alliance of transport and business organisations to persuade Chancellor Alistair Darling to call off the proposed increase scheduled for April 1.

In a letter to Mr Darling, NFU president Peter Kendall said farmers were ‘highly dependent’ on the haulage industry for the delivery of goods and the distribution of produce.

He said: ‘With fuel accounting for 35 per cent of haulage input costs, inflation in the haulage industry already runs at over 6 per cent and this cost has to be recouped through higher charges to the user.

‘However, as primary producers farmers are inevitably price takers, not makers, so they cannot recoup their increased costs through selling at higher prices.

‘Rural communities already pay higher fuel prices than less remote parts of the country, and a further increase at this time will hit both rural businesses and communities particularly hard.

‘At such a difficult time for the farmers a significant increase in fuel costs, both on-road and off-road, would be very damaging to their ability to recover to sustainable profitability’.

FUW president Gareth Vaughan said it was disappointing fuel duty rises were being introduced despite the extreme economic pressures on the agricultural industry and the wider rural economy.

He was concerned the rising costs of transportation, coupled with the knock-on effects of foot-and-mouth disease, were having a profound effect on the sustainability of the agricultural industry.

Roger Wrapson, livestock group secretary of the Road Haulage Association, said: “Like all industries we are struggling with the high cost of oil and, given the livestock industry is still trying to get itself back again after the disease problems, it would be extremely unwise for the Chancellor, if he is looking for growth or continuance in this sector, to continue with proposals for this increase.”