The answers I have been getting from DEFRA are worrying. They show no sense of urgency to use our new freedoms to promote more growing and rearing home grown food. They are not standing up for U.K. interests in interpreting the Trade Agreement with the EU. They are not bringing forward early plans to raise our fishing capacity or to expand our market gardening areas.
The thrust of policy seems to be to wilding our landscape instead of farming it better.There are too many proposed grants for so called environmental gains and not enough for food production. Many of us want to slash the food mikes, employ more U.K. people and enjoy more good U.K. produced food.That means extending the season for vegetables and soft fruit with more glasshouses and polytunnels. It means working with the food manufacturing industry to put more U.K. produce into imaginative meals and good recipes for ready meals. It means strong U.K. branding.
I see some of the supermarkets understand U.K. consumer wishes. Many fresh food items have the Union flag on. None carry the EU, Spanish or Dutch flags. Let’s go one step further and have a farming policy which delivers us more great British food. The world does not owe us a living and it is not good to be so dependent on overseas supply of things we can grow for ourselves.
Follow this news feed: John Redwood MP