Shropshire Star

Special report: Shropshire farmers divided on Brexit

It is the EU debate that has disappeared from the political radar – just how a British exit would affect our farmers. Today the Shropshire Star highlights an issue that is crucial to our county's rural economy, but which has been notable by its absence on the referendum campaign trail.

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The farming community, like the rest of the country, is divided on the issue.

While most farmers are believed to favour staying within the EU, there is a sizeable minority that feel UK agriculture would benefit from a Brexit.

EU supporter Richard Yates, who runs the family-owned Manor Farm at Middleton Scriven, near Bridgnorth, is critical of the "dearth" of information on the impact a EU withdrawal would have on the industry.

Mr Yates says leaving the EU is a "risk not worth taking".

Richard Yates, who runs the family-owned Manor Farm at Middleton Scriven, near Bridgnorth, believes British farmers are best served by remaining in the EU, although he says there is a dearth of factual information available about the impact it would have on the industry.

He says leaving the EU would represent a risk for the industry which he does not believe is worth taking. "I can only speak for myself, but I would be extremely cautious about leaving the largest single market in the world, with 500 million customers," he says. "We would be walking away from that table, from being a central player, to being a bit-part player on the periphery."

Mr Yates says 38 per cent of British lamb is sold within the EU, making it the biggest market.

"I wouldn't want to do anything that would harm that relationship while the protracted trade talks, which could take years, take place. That bothers me."

Mr Yates says that the UK Government would theoretically be able to subsidise farms by the same amount that they receive at present, but adds that if previous Conservative manifestos were anything to go by, this would be unlikely.

"I was in New Zealand in the late 1980s when the Labour government withdrew its subsidies overnight," he says.

"You can't compare Great Britain and New Zealand because the climates differ considerably. In New Zealand you can grow grass for 12 months of the year, whereas in Britain you can only really grow it for six months, meaning the costs are so much greater because you have to bring the animals indoors. But they did end the subsidies and the cost to the industry was terrible.

"They have recovered very well, but I personally don't advocate that. Every modern, western democracy supports their farmers, and we have to try to compete on a level playing field."

Mr Yates says he is disappointed that agriculture has not figured more highly in the debate, saying it has so far focused almost exclusively on immigration, but he

does concede that EU regulation has become a serious burden for farmers in Shropshire to bear.

"There is the three-crop rule that requires me to farm three different crops. There's so much red tape to worry about," he says.

"But if we left the EU, I doubt we would see a serious reduction in red tape."

He said 38 per cent of British lamb is sold within the EU and that many farms would not be able to run without labour from EU workers.

Eurosceptic Bruce Udale runs the 2,600-acre Eyton Park Farm at Eyton, near Telford, where he grows cereals, potatoes and oil-seed rape.

Mr Udale says the EU does not provide value for money and that the subsidies our farmers get from the EU are considerably less than the Government pays in.

He says there is no reason why the British Government would not be able to continue with the subsidies.

He added: "We are subsidised quite a lot by the EU, but we put more in than we take out – it is really our money that comes back to us."

Agra Europe, a London-based firm of consultants that has compiled a report on how Brexit could impact on agriculture, says an exit from the European Union could devastate Britain's agriculture, cause 90 per cent of the country's farms to close, and result in major food companies leaving the UK in droves.

If that sounds like one of the wilder claims coming from the 'Operation Fear' campaign to stay in the EU, it should certainly be taken in its proper context. This is the worst-case scenario, based on the improbable assumption that all farm subsidies would come to an end and that the Government would just stand back and watch the collapse.

It does, though, highlight the importance of the referendum to the county's farmers. While most of the debate about Britain's membership of the EU has centred on industry and immigration, there are huge implications for our farming communities.

At the moment, British farmers get about £2.88 billion a year from the EU, accounting for 58 per cent of their income, so there is clearly a lot at stake.

However, it should also be remembered that this money comes from British taxpayers in the first place, and advocates of Brexit argue that we could cut out the middle man and pay the subsidies directly to the farmers. It is also often quoted that 80 per cent of EU subsidies go to just 20 per cent of farmers, and that the majority receive less than £5,000 in EU grants.

The National Farmers' Union, which has 55,000 members across England and Wales, is yet to declare its position on Brexit. It has commissioned a study by the Dutch agricultural research institute LEI Wageningen, which will examine three possible scenarios for British agriculture. Only when this report is published, in the spring, will the NFU decide.

Crucial issues are likely to be whether a post-Brexit UK would continue with the EU's Common Agricultural Policy, which could mean adhering to the existing – and any future EU regulations – in exchange for access to the single market.

Alternatively, Britain could go it alone, and draw up its own agricultural policy tailored to the needs of British farmers – but the downside could be higher tariffs on imports and exports, making trade more difficult.

Bruce Udale says there is no reason why the British Government would not be able to continue with the subsidies paid by the EU

Bruce Udale runs the 2,600-acre Eyton House Farm at Eyton, near Telford, where he grows cereals, potatoes and the oil-seed rape.

He says the subsidies that farmers get from the European Union are considerably less than the Government pays in, and that there is no reason why the British Government would not be able to continue with the subsidies.

But he says there is also an argument for phasing some of the subsidies out over the long term.

"We are subsidised quite a lot by the EU, but we put more in than we take out, it's really our money that comes back to us," he says. "A certain amount of that goes on conservation and 'greening' initiatives, where farmers are paid to plant certain types of vegetable, and I don't have a problem with that."

But he says other EU subsidies simply give money to farmers according to how much land they have, and this also increases the amount that farmers pay out. "Most farmers will have a base farm that they own, and then they will rent other land out," he says.

"Because farmers are competing for the same land, and they are all getting the same subsidies, it drives the rent of the land up, adding to our costs.

"But when we sell our produce, we are selling in a global market place, and these extra costs make European produce uncompetitive. The subsidies are very over-rated. If I was in charge, I would initially keep the subsidies the same, but would then slowly reduce them over seven to 10 years.

"The grant part I would leave in place would be for the environmental projects and greening. You are not going to get farmers to carry out the sort of environmental measures the public wants if they don't get paid for it, but I think some of the others can be reduced."

He cites the case of New Zealand, which made a decision to move away from farm subsidies.

"In New Zealand they did it overnight, and a few places went out of business, and you wouldn't have to do it like that," he says.

"But if you go back now and talk to the farmers, they don't want their subsidies back. Their climate is about the same as ours for growing wheat, and now they can send it on a boat to China or Australia and make a living because their costs have come down."

He says farmers in the EU are also held back by regulations relating to everything from what crops to grow to which chemicals to use.

NFU President Meurig Raymond says the union's independent report will be crucial to helping farmers come to an informed decision.

"British farmers must not go into an EU referendum without all the information," he says.

"If Britain stays in the EU we need to know what steps will be taken to make European agriculture more competitive. If we leave the EU, what will a British agriculture policy look like, and what will be the future of support payments? How will British farmers access the European market and will the UK be more open to imports from outside Europe?"

Owen Paterson, the eurosceptic North Shropshire MP and former Environment Secretary, firmly believes farmers would be better off outside the EU.

He says far from being a support for British farmers, the CAP actually holds the industry back.

He points out that farmers in Switzerland, Norway and Iceland, which are not EU members, get far more generous subsidies from their governments than anything that is given to member states.

"The EU contributes £2.9 billion to the UK via the CAP and related subsidies," says Mr Paterson.

"Yet, the UK's estimated net contribution to the EU budget is £9.8 billion. If appropriate, a sovereign UK Government, no longer constrained by EU rules, could actually increase rural payments.

"By leaving the political structures of the EU, a UK policy could not only pay as much, if not more, than the CAP, but funds would be allocated in a much more effective and targeted manner."

Mr Paterson also argues that having a common farming policy shared by 28 separate countries inevitably means Britain has to accept compromises.

He adds: "Farmers are often exasperated by the difficulties of implementing the CAP. To add insult to injury, the European Commission then fines the UK for incorrectly implementing the CAP measures."

Mr Paterson says the UK was fined £600 million because the previous Labour government had failed to implement the last set of CAP reforms.

And he says reforms introduced by previous Agriculture Commissioner Raymond MacSharry have changed the CAP from a regime of subsidised food production and employment protection to one of imposing common environmental targets across many, very different geographical areas.

"Imposing a pan-European environment policy has proved impossible," he says.

"Many aspects of 'greening' are intrusive, costly and difficult to administer. Some are wholly unsuited to the UK environment. Regulation could be massively simplified."

For example, Mr Paterson suggests that outside the EU Britain would be able to create a "gold standard" for the best performing, most trusted farmers which would not be subject to regular inspection.

"Like all of us who are trusted with our tax returns, they could be subject to random inspection," he says.

Mr Paterson says the EU's reluctance to adopt modern farming technology has turned the continent into "the museum of world farming", with the ban on neonicotinoid pesticides being just one of a number of absurd rules imposed on farmers without scientific basis.

"Activists accused neonics of causing a 'bee-pocalypse,' an imminent extinction of bees," says Mr Paterson.

"When I was at the Department for the Environment, I received 85,000 emails from environmental activists about this – very few of them were complimentary.

"Even though bee populations are not falling at all, but rather growing both in the EU and around the world, the European Commission caved in to the activists. They over-rode their own scientists and banned neonics at the end of 2013."

This, he says, forced farmers to use older, less effective pesticides which damaged the aquatic environment and were worse for bees.

"England's oil-seed rape crop has diminished by more than 13 per cent," he adds.

Mr Paterson says that this opposition to modern farming methods means that despite sitting on some of the world's most fertile land, the EU still has to import huge amounts of food.

"US maize yields have overtaken those of France in the last 20 years," he says, adding that if France had used the same technologies as the US it would have yielded an extra £150 million.

"If France had kept pace with modern technologies, like better seed breeding, the rapid adoption of data-driven support tools or the use of GM-technology, yields would be similar to those in the USA."

The Agra Europe report says that in 2013, European subsidies are worth £58 an acre, and if this income was lost the impact on Britain's farming sector would be devastating.

"Only the super-efficient 10 per cent could survive without them," it says.

The European Commission estimates that land prices would fall 30 per cent across the EU if CAP subsidies were abolished.

"For farmers who have taken out debt against the value of their land, a loss of value could be fatal," says the Agra report.

However, elsewhere on this page, a Shropshire farmer points out that the high cost of rented land is making European farming uncompetitive. Like most of the arguments, it is two sides of the same coin.

The Agra report points to a document drafted in 2013 by the then-Coalition government, which seems to suggest a gradual reduction in subsidies, along the lines of policies in Australia and New Zealand.

This would see cuts in green payments to large agro-industrial farms, instead focusing subsidies on small farms and areas of natural beauty. Tariffs on trade with non-EU countries would be slashed, with a view to competing with farming in Australasia and the Americas.

"The consequences would likely be that land prices would fall, banks would foreclose on loans based on high land prices, and bankruptcies would be widespread," says the Agra report.

However, this is all supposition. Richard North, a Ukip-supporting author of several books on British agriculture, says it is an "absurd assumption" that a post-Brexit government would slash farm subsidies.

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