Market place is the key to prosperity - Conservatives

Jim Paice, Shadow Farming Minister, told a fringe event at the Conservative Party conference in Manchester yesterday (Monday, 5 October), that farmers could not rely on public money forever. When subsidies do end he said British farmers would only be able to compete if they received a fair price for their produce – and he said the Government must intervene to provide those conditions.

“It is inevitable that direct payments to farmers will end one day. I am not saying that day is around the corner, but it will come.

“So if there is one objective for me it is to equip farmers with all the tools necessary to compete and prosper on an open market.”

Mr Paice said the Conservative Party was already leading the agenda to improve market conditions for farmers.

“We are leading on the honest labelling initiative as demonstrated by Tesco’s support of our campaign to improve country of origin labelling of food. Our campaign has succeeded where the government has failed.

“A voluntary agreement had seemed impossible until now but support from major supermarkets is a significant step forward,” he said.

Mr Paice said the Conservatives would support a new code of practice for supermarkets, as proposed by the Competition Commission, and argued for a ‘strong leader’ to enforce the rules and ‘stand up’ to the supermarkets.

He also said farmers must be given more control over their own destiny, particularly when it came to disease control.

“The Government’s current proposals for cost sharing must be more properly thought through so that they don’t just mean sending a bill through to farmers.

“We must let farmers have a significant role in deciding what disease control policy should be,” he said.

Mr Paice finished by warning farmers the ‘days of production at all costs’ had gone.

“We now recognise the need to farm in harmony with conservation and nature. Forty years ago we did things that by today’s standards we know were wrong – ripping out hedges and woodland. But today things are different.

“We will create the market conditions where farmers can produce food, look after the environment and make a fair living.”