defra secretary

This week's opinion from throughout the world of agriculture: Oxford Real Farming Conference manager, Hester van Hensbergen

NFU president Tom Bradshaw said the Government fails to recognise that the farming industry is in a ‘cash flow crisis' right now, with the ‘lowest farmer and grower confidence ever recorded'

The Soil Association said if the Defra Secretary wants to achieve 'long-term food security, profitability and sustainability for our farming sector', then simply monitoring for British food in public institutions 'will not be enough'

UFU president William Irvine said once all the facts were laid out on the table, it seemed the negative impact that the budget changes will have on NI started to 'hit home'

Defra said the Government had inherited the laboratories in 'poor condition' and warned the current state of the facilities posed a 'significant risk to Britain's farmers and human health'

According to Defra, around 13,000 farmers were impacted by severe wet weather, including Storms Henk and Babet, between October and March last year

Secretary of State Steve Reed said: "Assuming these projections from HMRC validated by Office for Budget Responsibility [OBR] and Institute for Fiscal Studies [IFS] are correct, than many of them, probably happily are wrong"

The mass lobby on November 19 is now at full capacity. Farmers who have not already registered for the event are warned not to travel down to London and told there will be another opportunity to make their voices heard