Addressing the NFU Conference in Birmingham on Tuesday, Environment Secretary Liz Truss said the government is doing all it can to help dairy farmers, and pledged to roll out badger culling to new areas if the Tories are re-elected.

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• Improve productivity and resilience in the industry (through promoting apprenticeships and Food Enterprise Zones - where planning regulations are relaxed to allow food businesses to grow - looking into a futures market for dairy products and slashing ‘red tape’);
• Open up new markets (though applying for protected regional status for more foods, driving more public procurement programmes and seeking new trading partners outside the EU);  
• Push for changes to make EU rules "work for us" (through demanding that Commission rules on pesticides are 'proportional', "Encouraging Europe to embrace scientific advances such as GM" and simplifying CAP reform rules); and
• Keep Britain free from plant and animal disease (by maintaining the number of front-line vets and pursuing the government's ongoing strategy to tackle bovine TB)

Truss said, "Britain's food and farming industry is a powerhouse of our economy – contributing £100 bn each year and employing 1 in 8 people - and has huge potential to deliver further jobs and growth.

"Our long-term economic plan for food and farming will unlock the potential of this vital industry – by encouraging more talented entrepreneurs to pursue a career in food, removing unnecessary bureaucracy, protecting the industry from plant and animal diseases, and opening new markets for top quality British food both at home and overseas."

Badger culling

Truss told the NFU conference she believed that bovine TB presents "The greatest threat to our beef and dairy industry," Adding, "That’s why this Government, and any future Conservative Government, will take the difficult decisions to deal with this disease." She said, "We will not let up, whatever complaints we get from protest groups."

The announcement came despite farming minister George Eustice having previously stated that no decision on badger culling would be made public until after the general election. The Labour party announced earlier this month that it would end the much maligned trial culls if the party is successful in May.

Truss' announcement has been condemned by conservation groups, who have called for controversial culls being trialled in two areas of the South-West to be scrapped after the Gloucestershire pilot failed for the second year running in 2014, and the Somerset cull company narrowly met its reduced target. In 2013, both culls were judged to have failed by independent experts, leading then-environment secretary Owen Paterson to claim that badgers had “moved the goalposts” in response to criticism of the government’s shifting cull strategy.  

Reacting to the announcement, Claire Bass, executive director of Humane Society International UK, suggested that opposition to the badger cull is not limited to protest groups. Bass warned, “The badger cull has been a very expensive, cruel and ineffective farce and Liz Truss cuts an increasingly lonely figure in continuing to defend it.

“The rational, scientific and apolitical solution to bovine TB is happening right now in Wales: a combination of badger vaccination, improved farm biosecurity and stricter cattle movement measures. With the election just weeks away the government has a short window of opportunity to reverse this disastrous strategy, and win back some public trust in its countryside policies.”

Pesticides

The secretary of state also informed conference delegates that the UK government has “Told the EU Commission that decisions on pesticides must be proportionate and based on science,” which sparked a reaction from environmental campaigners.

Friends of the Earth Nature campaigner Sandra Bell responded, “The scientific evidence linking neonicotinoid insecticides to bee decline is compelling, and there’s no evidence so far that restrictions on these chemicals have affected crop yields.

“If pesticides are having a negative impact on our health or environment, they must be withdrawn from use. Public subsidies should be used to help farmers ensure that we have good quality, plentiful food and a thriving natural world.”

FoE’s Sandra Bell pointed to the ADAS 2014 Harvest Report, which showed oilseed rape yields for the past year - during which time the EU’s partial restrictions on three neonicotinoids were in place - remined "in line with the 5 year average" for crop losses i.e. the loss of crops were in line with losses in other years.

Red Tape

Though the outcomes of the Red Tape Challenge, and findings of the Farming Regulatory Task Force, which advised the current government, were intended to stimulate growth, those fighting agains certain recommendations warned that any 'growth' resulting from the measures would benefit the few at the expense of the many.

Trade union Unite, which campaigned against the closure of the Agricultural Wages Board, warned "The abolition of the AWB is not a rationalising red tape measure - it is a CUT. It is an austerity measure. It will make working and living in the countryside impossible for low waged workers, and it will pull much needed money out of the rural economy."

In December 2014,  a number of environment and civil society organisations challenged the EU Commission to tackle a "Worrying deregulatory tendency" in Europe.

In a statement issued after it emerged that corporate lobbyists had attempted to persuade the new Commission to scrap or dilute proposed regulations on air pollution, natural resources, maternity leave and gender equality in management, a coalition of trade unions, environment groups and other actors said, "We object to the narrow assertion that business competitiveness would be hampered by legislation protecting people and the environment.”

"To the contrary, we believe, as do a vast number of progressive companies, that the only way for European industry to be competitive is to innovate within the limits of a low carbon and resource efficient economy and to embrace strong social, labour, consumer and environmental protection measures.”