| Farming in Cornwall |
|
|
|
|
Jane Howells explains how we can help our farmers and help the environment and economy at the same time. Throughout the UK, farmers are under pressure and in Cornwall there are growers and producers who, although operating with maximum efficiency, find their businesses on the point of collapse.  Picking potatoes at St Buryan at the turn of the century. Yet, despite and through a decade of Government malpractice and livestock diseases, Cornwall has emerged as a region of excellence in food quality and variety, and farming and food production is as important to the Cornish economy as tourism. The functioning beauty of rural Cornwall is testament to the massive professionalism of the Cornish farmer in the face of different crises An indisputable factor in Cornwall’s agricultural environment is the independent and determined nature of the Cornish farmer. With a capacity for hard work, the average Cornish dairy farmer works over 80 hours a week beginning the day at 5.30am and in the summer months finishing up in the late evening and it’s not unusual to hear of a market gardener who has cut broccoli round the clock. Most of Cornwall’s 9,500 holdings fall into two categories - those run by owner-occupiers and those by tenant farmers. Cornwall has a larger than average share of tenanted farms - more than half - but these estates are important in providing land security and despite the difficulties many growers and producers have faced this year with cash flow problems due to Single Farm Payment delays, the estates are committed to the long haul in supporting Cornish agriculture and Cornish farming families. Tregothnan, belonging to Lord Falmouth, is perhaps the largest estate followed by the Duchy with 18,000 acres in Cornwall. Cornwall Council has what is called the County Farms Service with over 11,000 acres and 115 holdings and it is especially supportive with a commitment to helping tenants progress professionally as their business develops. Smaller estates like the St Aubyn’s Estate can have something of the quality of an extended family and certainly the St Aubyn’s Estate still holds an annual rent court, a tradition that is many centuries old. Looking into the structure of how farms operate, what becomes apparent is, as with lots of businesses, how variation is the norm. Many farmers manage by themselves; often a farmer and son will run a farm or sometimes two brothers. Farmers’ wives, often from farming backgrounds in their own right, can play an essential role in running the farm and 50 per cent of farm diversification undertakings are managed by farmer’s wives. Over the last few, difficult years the biggest contribution wives have made to the farm economy is by going out to work to provide a separate income. Additionally, the question of succession within farms doesn’t suggest the sort of stability that Cornwall has been used to. Although over half of the next generation of farmers are electing to follow their fathers into farming a worrying 47 per cent of farms have no immediate succession in place. Transformation in the type of farm labour is yet another feature of Cornish agriculture with the influx of Eastern Europeans being essential to the current functioning of the industry and by all accounts this is now an effective working relationship. The Poles, the Latvians, the Lithuanians have a ‘phenomenal’ work ethic, their average length of stay here might be two years and for their part they have a healthy financial return far above what they could earn in their own countries. However, in an environment of changes, the traditional and inherent connection between so many farmers and their farms has provided a source of continuity and what is only too evident is how much growers and producers of Cornwall have needed this in the crises of the last decade. A cumulative series of difficulties has given many aspects of the farming industry a negative aspect. The Cornish farmer works very hard, there is no doubt about this, but the average UK profit for farmers was £7,544 last year and long hours, debt and a low income are notorious for resulting in relationship problems. Compared to the past when there was a robust social structure in agriculture with weekly markets, meetings and teams of farm workers, the farmer today is often isolated and government bureaucracy, pressure and inspection add to stress and anxiety. Added to this is the uneven power balance between the growers and producers and their main market, the British supermarket. By any reckoning, Tesco is a magnificent moneymaking business for its shareholders and with the other supermarkets has immense power to drive the market. Farmers are forced into situations of accepting unfeasible conditions and prices while supermarkets are able to siphon taxpayer funded farm subsidies by making below cost-of-production offers to the farmer. Andrew George, MP for St Ives, has taken a leading role in the parliamentary campaign to address supermarket power. “The good fortunes of the biggest supermarkets and the continuing slide of British farming is not unrelated. Supermarkets gain much of their strength at the expense of the weaker farming sector,” he said. The last 15 years of agriculture have been a time of varied and devastating livestock diseases. BSE knocked the bottom out of the beef industry that recovered in time to be subject to enormous mismanagement during the foot and mouth outbreak of 2001. Within the £100 million Cornish dairy industry, bovine tuberculosis is a factor for farmers to content with. Besides natural disasters, Cornwall’s farmers have had to work around the unnatural disaster, in agricultural terms, of government policies. This year’s delay in payment to the Single Farm Payment system has caused hardship to many Cornish growers and producers. Common Agricultural Policy reform and the decoupling of subsidies and food production was generally welcomed in the agricultural industry and the new Single Farm Payment system was introduced as a land management subsidy designed to reduce over time and to improve quality of food production. Real and inexcusable incompetence in government departments has been very expensive all round: the UK is liable to be fined £30 million by the European Commission for not meeting payment deadlines. A £54 million computer malfunctioned, £100,000 extra was spent on key rural support organisations helping farmers deal with SFP stress and many farmers accrued interest payments on overdrafts taken to allow businesses to continue to operate. Farming communities rely upon cash flow within their businesses to settle accounts with their rural suppliers and tradesmen. The lack of Single Farm Payment cash seriously hinders the payment of bills to these local businesses, this, in turn, destabilises those businesses. Yet agriculture is a resilient industry and through crises it continues to restructure; farming and food processing now puts £1 billion pounds a year into the Cornish economy and Cornish produce is increasingly recognised for its exceptional quality. One hundred and fifty years ago the steamboats leaving Hayle for Bristol were heavily laden with new potatoes, broccoli, strawberries and mackerel and today it is the very same crops that form the backbone of the horticultural industry. The Cornish early potato has an increasingly high profile and it is an exceptionally good potato; very delicate, full of flavour and with a higher vitamin and mineral content than other varieties grown elsewhere. The mild climate augmented by the effects of careful soil husbandry by previous generations of farmers who composted today’s rich topsoil from seaweed, sand and manure mean that Cornwall is important for brassicas, and grows 80 per cent of the UK’s winter broccoli and spring greens. Figures like this serve to remind that, while we might think of a versatile cauliflower or a sweet, fresh cabbage as commonplace, other regions are not so fortunate. Then to strawberries, perfect companion to clotted cream and grown by an increasing number of the bigger farmers. “Cornwall has the perfect climate to grow the best strawberries in the world,” says grower Phil Boddington from Mevagissey. “The fruit ripens more slowly compared with say the Vale of Evesham or Kent, increasing the sugar content so we can get a much better and more intense flavour.” Market gardening, both conventional and organic takes advantage of the small fields and long growing season to provide a variety of produce that is diverse and appetising for the consumer. Besides horticulture, beef is also important and the tradition in Cornwall of beef farmers who produce top quality livestock for the table and for local consumption continues to go from strength to strength and which, in combination with good butchers who understand the importance of combining the factors of breed, rearing, slaughtering and hanging means that top quality beef is available throughout Cornwall. Dairy is the biggest agricultural sector a wealth of dedicated smaller businesses who take advantage of the creaminess of Cornish milk to make cream, cheese, butter, ice cream, yogurt and other dairy products. There are also other important types of farming - the poultry sector is worth almost £20 million a year, sheep are approximately half that figure and the pig industry also maintains a place in Cornish farming and elsewhere main crop potato, arable and forestry take precedence. Britain has gone food-mile mad as it continues to embrace the supermarket ethos facilitated by cheap air fuel and the relegation of food security issues. However, thanks to topography, climate and the application of traditional and state-of-the-art expertise, the local food grown in Cornwall is exceptional in quality and value. Many farmers in Cornwall rely entirely on the local market and a lot more are hoping to see this sector expand. “If just 10 per cent of the food purchasing budget within Cornwall could be switched to the local producer, this would make a very significant difference to Cornish farming. What people need to do is ask if its local - whether this is fish and chips or a Michelin Star meal - and then buy local, in the shops, in the supermarkets. If its fast food then choose a pasty rather than a burger,’ says David Rodda, of the Cornwall Agricultural Council. Customers increasingly demand seasonality, traceability and the honesty and flavour of fresh local produce, and circulating income and expenditure benefits many communities by retaining and creating employment. “The strong message is ask for and push for local food when you go to the supermarket - and make the most of our fantastic range of farm shops,” says Rob Poole, Penwith District Council rural economy officer. Some Cornish towns and districts take a very pro-active approach to the local food issue. Truro has more than half a dozen local produce markets and is very successful at promoting these markets and Marazion has also worked hard to champion local produce. Marazion and District Forum chairman Tricia Sanderson explains: “There is often a gap between demand and supply: people want to buy Cornish-produced food, but do not always know if it is available or where they can get it from. A local food coordinator could bridge this gap.” With the privilege of living in Cornwall come responsibilities. When tin mining was in crisis, Cornish people couldn’t go out and buy tin to put in their weekly shopping baskets. Today, farming is having difficulties and people do have the chance to make a difference through their shopping baskets. The Future for Cornish farming So what of the future of farming in Cornwall which, with food processing, is matching tourism and one that brings across the board benefits through food and land management? Although there is a loss of a 100 farms a year, the industry continues to develop pragmatically and the Objective One funding allocated to agriculture has been consistently well managed and is producing real and sustainable benefits. There are indications that agriculture in the future may be in the hands of some very capable professionals. The Cornwall Federation of Young Farmers is active both socially and in teaching skills for life work and has a strong voice nationally both through the executive and thanks to competition successes. The Cornwall Agricultural Council has initiated the industry-led Fresh Start programme, a pilot scheme to facilitate entry into the industry. This will help determined, well-trained young Cornish farmers who are looking for tenant farms to start their career. The future of farming in Cornwall will depend on many factors including continuing hard work on the part of the farmer and an increased commitment to the local market by the consumer but, as farmer Geoff Osborne, of Truro, says: “Despite all the problems that agriculture has faced, we’re still here and we’re still growing slowly. The countryside will always be here and the best way to look after it is by farming it properly. It’s as simple as that.” |