The Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, held a ‘food summit’ on 16 May. With an open letter to UK farmers, his meeting fulfilled a promise he made in the summer when he was campaigning for the Conservative Party leadership to protect their interests in future trade deals. The ‘Farm to Fork’ meeting brought together representatives from all parts of the food supply chain, with the aim of boosting growth, driving innovation, improving sustainability, and increasing resilience. His letter confirmed the government’s commitment to supporting the farming industry and how he plans to forge new trade details to ensure that they continue to be successful in the future so that we do not experience a repeat of the food shortages we saw earlier in 2023.
The Prime Minister acknowledged that to meet our target we need to continue producing 60 per cent of the food we consume and to do this we need to continue to grow our food and farming industry. To do this international trade is critical and to strengthen our presence at major shows, particularly in the transpacific region, there will be an additional £2 million made available. The Government also plan to create a £1 million programme to support our dairy sector which will mirror a £1 million Seafood Exports Package which together will build on the £100 million investment being made in infrastructure and skills to support the seafood industry.
Prior to the summit, the Government announced a package of measures to help the food and farming sectors. These include:
- Confirmation that as 2023, 45,000 visas will be available under the Seasonal Agricultural Workers scheme in 2024.
- More Government funding will be made available to promote exports, including five new Agri-food attaches, additional exposure at trade shows, and extra money for the GREAT Food & Drink campaign. There will also be specific funds for seafood and dairy exporters, up to £30m has been promised to help develop precision breeding techniques and build on the opportunities presented by the recent Precision Breeding Act.
- Reviews will be undertaken in the horticulture and egg sectors following reviews into the fairness of contracts in the dairy and pig meat sectors, similar.
- A commitment that the Grocery Code Adjudicator will remain independent and not be subsumed into the Competitions and Markets Authority.
- A replacement for the Producer Organisation (PO) scheme in the horticulture sector when the current EU ‘legacy’ scheme ends in 2026.
- A call for evidence later in the year on how red tape can be cut to help the conversion of farm buildings to diversification activities. There is also a commitment to reform the planning regime to make the building of glasshouses easier.
- Accelerating work on making water infrastructure more resilient to ensure agriculture has access to the supplies it needs.
Find out more about the plans here. Find out more about our agribusiness consultancy service here.
