Tag: The Future

The need for a collaborative approach to the UK Farming and Food Security Problem

Watching the stories unfold around UK Farming and Food Security is as frustrating as it is concerning for these following significant reasons:

  1. The Government isn’t going to change course on its overall relationship with UK Farms and Farming. Even if some media friendly concessions are made. Much like two of the UK Supermarket chains this week making public announcements that they support our Farmers over the Inheritance Tax issue, whilst at the same time taking no action to create genuine change that would help Farmers to receive an income that reflects the role that they have as a Key player in the Food Chain.
  2. Farmers are committed to ‘changing unchangeable minds’. Because of the way that the Agricultural Marketplace and the systems feeding in and out of it have been deliberately manipulated over a period exceeding 50 years.
  3. There is an industry-wide dependency upon subsidies and contract production/trading arrangements that effectively surrendered the control of UK Farms and Farming to the establishment (primarily EU ‘modelling’) and big business, which has resulted in a cultural deprogramming of some of the most creative and entrepreneurial mindsets to exist within the SME, operational business world.
  4. A situational bias exists within the UK Farming community, UK agricultural academia, UK Farming advocacy organisations and the industry media and commentariat, where the solutions to the problems that many freely elucidate and the outcomes that they desire are only considered within or relating to the structure of the existing economic paradigm and cultural deference that the general UK population has to the Public Sector, NGOs, Government, Politicians and public figures, or those in ‘a position of responsibility’ or influence.
  5. The reluctance or objection to ‘going a different way’ that adheres to UK legal requirements, but is itself not led or reliant upon government, the public sector or any industry bodies that are heavily influenced by them, is based purely upon the idea that Farmers themselves taking responsibility for investing in either the diversification of their own enterprises or collectively with other local or like businesses, will offer unacceptable levels of financial risk. Whereas waiting for the government, public sector, industry bodies and those businesses like Supermarkets to ‘wake up’ and ‘invest to save UK Farming’ will not.
  6. The latent pool of knowledge, experience and understanding that exists within the Farming community, throughout agricultural academia and the supporting sectors, has the ability to offer industry changing outcomes that would quickly return Farming and Food Production to the central role within UK Communities that it traditionally had, and still should. Based on the reality that Food is as essential as Air to breathe and Water to drink for every person, each and every day.
  7. Those members of the wider Farming community with platforms and voices to be heard remain focused on promoting the issues, solutions and outcomes as their own view and experience enables them to see them. Too often overlooking the reality that there are profound threads of commonality between every one of them which are all too often being overlooked, as the default position is for everyone to focus on what is ‘right’, only for them.
  8. This was the situation a year ago. A year before that and so on. IHT has just focused the imagination of more people than before. But could prove counterproductive.

It doesn’t stop there. But going into further reams of detail will not help anyone who is not open to the collaborative, community approach that has now become necessary for UK Farming to evolve and regenerate itself into a model of working and operation that will not just allow it to survive. But actually thrive.

As an experienced business leader who spent 12 years in frontline politics after being a local government officer and senior charity manager, then embarking on a research and thought journey that took me to complete a PGCert in Sustainable Ag and Food Security at the RAU, I have a perspective on what is happening that doesn’t conform to stereotype to say the very least.

Whilst I have written extensively about the Food Security situation, attempted to broaden others perspectives on how the Food Chain really works, suggested a way to use the issues with Red Tractor to launch a new Food Quality and Provenance Assurance Scheme to begin a revolution in UK Farming and focused on the role of Local Food Chains with the Community in the Future, I have been doing so purely with the intent of opening a door.

The door I am referring to opens to the room of collaboration and discourse where using everything as we are doing it and know it, is left behind. Because this all represents the past, and what whoever or whatever is really driving all the problems that UK Farming faces wants to happen and intends to be in place.

Although I made my misgivings clear about the aims and approach of No Farmers No Food from the start and have seen nothing yet to suggest that they are anything other than a problem awareness raising vehicle, I keep a close eye. Hoping that something will change and a touchpaper or catalyst might appear that will at least begin to bring the different ideas, views and suggested solutions together in a way that opens every mind to learning from each other’s views and most importantly, leaves the egos behind.

In a tweet yesterday, No Farmers No Food, talked up the value of marketing boards as many will remember them with the inference or suggestion that they could be of great help to UK Farming, if they were to exist now.

It was one of the rare occasions when I felt that I wanted to respond, seeing that there are principles that could be highly beneficial in the fight to save UK Farms and Food Security today, depending upon the approach taken and what the model of such organisations would be and how they would operate today.

I haven’t focused on ‘marketing boards’ in anything like the historic sense. In no small part as their demise arguably led and fed into many of the problems that the industry faces today. Because the platform they offered was not protected as it should have been by government and the public sector, and was in no small way exploited by a range of different profit driven organisatons for the levels of financial gain which have led to the crippling financial straightjacket that UK Farming now finds itself in.

However, Hector Wetherell McNeill from the George Boole Foundation Limited replied and and linked a paper to my tweet that they have recently published titled ‘Agricultural Commodity Marketing Boards’, which you will find if you follow this link HERE.

I’m grateful that Hector responded as he has done. As whilst I would suggest there is a broader picture to consider that I have touched upon in the points above, and I don’t believe that marketing boards are in and of themselves a solution to the mess that UK Farming is now in, there are a number of very valuable points and suggestions made that could be massively helpful within a cooperative operational business or some kind that has a system of governance that runs locally and outside the influence of any of the usual suspects that quickly come to mind.

I would certainly be supportive of the discussion group idea that the proposal discusses and feel sure that the communication technology that is now readily available could be used to create a discussion and ideas sharing platform that could prove to be game-changing indeed.

I will end here by saying only that there are no politicians and no political party that exists today that can or will be able to make the changes to the UK Farming industry that only Farmers and the businesses that are aligned with the sector can and have the power to do so themselves.

The only thing that is really stopping UK Farming from making the changes that are now needed is the recognition that the power to make those changes rests only with UK Farmers themselves.

Many thanks again to Hector and best wishes to you all.

Adam

The need for a collaborative approach to UK Farming PDF_Vers1_25Mar25Download

Is the Collapse of UK Farming and Food Security now inevitable?

From the position where I am looking at everything UK Farmers and the supporting businesses and sectors around them now face, I regrettably believe that a collapse of UK Farming and our Food Chain is now inevitable.

The accelerating downward trajectory of UK Farming will not be stopped until events take over, or the majority of UK Farmers step back and see everything they face differently.

Quite a statement I know. Not least of all because it flies in the face of a great many names that the industry respects, whom I have no personal quarrel with.

Somewhat disconcertingly, despite the bubbles of different interests that exist across the industry; when it comes to the answers, solutions and whatever we can expect to happen next, everyone – other than perhaps just a few like me – is looking the very same way.

Expectation vs Reality

Farmers, Farmers membership and advocacy organisations and even No Farmers No Food expect the problems the industry has to be solved by the same people and organisations that not only caused them, but are accelerating the problems being experienced right now.

Few Farmers agree with what I have to say. Because those who are Farming today typically see Farming, the role of Farming and how Farming is being treated by industry and government in a very different way.

To be fair, I wouldn’t expect anything else. Farmers are far from being alone when it comes to the questions over what we know, what we believe and what is normal to expect from the businesses and organisations that we have relationships with and most importantly, the people that we elect.

However, it really shouldn’t be hard for anyone to stop, step back and remember that what we see and what is happening can be very different things.

Power of the political and financial kind has always been open to abuse. Many will have heard the expression ‘Give them bread and circuses’ that dates to Roman times and demonstrates how the public have always been ‘played’. So that those in power can reduce the risk to their position, no matter what might be going on.

Unfortunately, we are navigating a period of human history where manipulation in the forms of marketing, narratives and fear rolled out in many peculiar forms, is used very effectively to create a situation where any one of us can find ourselves questioning our own common sense and what we actually believe.

The internet, smart phones and the arrival of the most recent forms of Artificial Intelligence have made the problem all the more severe.

The reality that we do question what we can trust at least peripherally has the rather perverse outcome for many of making it even more likely that we will trust people and organisations, because of who they are and how their roles are presented to us, when we really shouldn’t be doing anything other than steering a wide berth from anything they say or compel us to do.

In real terms, this means that anyone, including Farmers, no matter how well educated or experienced, is likely to believe and accept as truth whatever those benefitting from whatever is happening to each and every Farm want us or that Farmer to believe.

And they sure don’t like it when anyone questions the validity of what they say and what is likely to just be a partial truth might be.

What is really ‘in play’ today?

The attack on UK Farming didn’t begin on 30th October, when The Chancellor unveiled the assault on Inheritance Tax Relief on the generational transfer of working Family Farms.

What it did herald however, was the step of taking the war to destroy UK Food Production as we have known it, into the open. Instead of the whole thing being hidden in plain sight, as it has been for decades before.

They have done this:

Either because the politicians we have and those who advise or influence them are now confident enough that the industry no longer has the clout or leverage to stop them.

Or more likely, because they are now desperate to contain the threat of power being returned to the Farmers themselves.

(Because the whole system that has been working and undermining everything for greed, profit and control since the early 70’s has now reached a point where the economic system that underpins it could collapse, and they could lose their control at any time.)

The outcry from the general public over Farmers IHT has taken the political classes more than a little by surprise.

They believed that the accompanying narrative that ‘Farmers must pay their way like everyone else’ would very quickly resonate with the general public. Given that the left has always happily propagated myths like ‘You never see a poor Farmer’.

What the establishment didn’t expect was a predominantly visceral response from so many different people. Where instincts have told even those not consciously thinking about it that any attack on Farming isn’t about Farming. It’s actually an attack on our Food.

Is Farming really about self-interest or public interest?

Regrettably, this is where maintaining the momentum for supporting Farmers becomes tricky. Because many Farmers see their businesses as being all about income and profit. In a similar way, if not in the very same sense as the politicians do.

With what seems impeccable timing and within a month of the Budget announcement, an initiative landed on social media that informed anyone watching that a new methane-reducing feed supplement initiative is about to be launched and underway using Farms that are contracted into the corporate system.

The relationship between Farms and a processor suggests that this isn’t a matter of choice.

So, it didn’t come as any great surprise that the issues raised by the implications of ‘playing god with natural processes’ would immediately create a new division between those who ‘cannot’ say no to such ‘trials’, because of the financial implications of doing so, and those who see and are at least beginning to question the vein of commonality flowing through every attack on UK Farming.

The last minutes of a VERY long game

Whether its supermarket prices, chemical additive use required by processors, the freeing up of capital that invested in Land and Farms through new punitive taxes, the disintegrating financial support from government and the public sector, or the bureaucracy that has steadily transformed everything since our membership of the deliberately flawed Common Market and latterly The EU began, they all have a war on the ability of the UK  and more importantly our communities to run and thrive independently with Food in common at their very core.

In the world we are now being shoehorned into, Money talks and bullshit quite literally walks.

Food Production as we traditionally know it, is the antithesis of everything that those controlling our lives and businesses want and represent.

Who am I and why am I presenting a different understanding of the status quo?

I realise and understand why few can see or even agree with what I am saying here and what I write, speak and publish about Food, Farming and Food Security – amongst many other public policy related things.

Before 12 years in frontline politics, roles in professional charity leadership and years of being an entrepreneur and living the highs and traumatising lows of being in and around businesses, I began my career in farming – where I always had a strong affiliation with the Dairy Sector and made many friendships as a Young Farmer that I maintain to this day.

Farming and specifically Agri-contracting is a big thing within my wider family and beyond the proud heritage of my grandfather being a highly skilled wheelwright and pioneer in hydraulic farm trailer manufacturing, my great grandfather was a steam ploughman too.

My active interest in politics, or rather my driving belief in something better for everyone, in public service and for community working has been at the centre of so much of what I have done and what I still do.

That interest has taken me on a path that led me to appreciate how important the independence of local Food Chains to Our Future will now be. But also, to spend time completing a Postgraduate Certificate in Sustainable Agriculture and Food Security at the Royal Ag, where my fears about the position and outlook of the industry and where it is being led were starkly confirmed and amplified.

The watershed UK Farming is now within

It is difficult for anyone thinking rationally or logically to believe the realities and mechanics of the position that Farming and the wider economy now find themselves in.

Not because of the expertise and knowledge that is there to be tapped into by those who need it suggests otherwise.

But because nothing that is happening to Farming, to people or in politics at any level across the UK as we know it today, is in any way that which it seems.

I’m sure that you will agree it is more than likely that anyone questioned would at least admit that they believe something is going very wrong. Even if they cannot or would not try to identify what that something is.

In the few days after the Budget bombshell was dropped, I began writing ‘Who Controls Our Food Controls Our Future’, in an attempt to open up the reality of what is happening and why within the UK Food Chain.

I did so in what does today feel like the forlorn hope that at least some of the people and businesses that I care so deeply about would at the very least conduct a review of what they currently believe to be true.

Within ‘Who Controls Our Food Controls Our Future’, I discussed the strange but nonetheless compelling ‘situational bias’ that is holding us back from looking at anything and everything differently to what we already know and do.

Because we have trapped ourselves with the belief that we can only trust the sources, systems, procedures, businesses, organisations and news channels that we already know.

It is this situational bias that today presents the greatest risk to the future of UK Farming and with it the UKs Food Security and our Food Supply.

All of which should quite rightly be placed at the heart and function of our Local Communities and everything that we know.

Sadly, most of us still believe that the mind of Politicians can be changed politically. When the game that they are playing and which the politicians and those who control them have framed, isn’t politics at all.

By continuing to engage in any way that shows deference to them and their system and their way of working, rather than just sticking to the basic level of adherence to the rules which the current way of working requires that we all respect, the power of change and control over our future remains firmly in their hands.

The option to save UK Farming and with it our Food Security and a future that will give us all much more besides exists.

But it is also a journey and process where there isn’t politics of the kind that Westminster controls involved.

Play it their way or play it our way.

The Food that UK Farmers can produce is a key part of Our Future. But the choice of whether Farms end up at the centre of that future, or die without anyone other than the politicians themselves knowing why is for Farmers to decide.

Like everything. Its all about the way that we think.

The Contemporary Politicians Dilemma

You’ve just been elected as an MP and your political group or party holds the majority of Seats in Parliament.

Your group or party now has power over everything. Can change anything. Can be anything. Can do everything that you all promised the people who voted for you when you were successfully elected, just the other day.

In the briefings and within the advice that was never available to you and your political colleagues before the election took place, you are told very clearly, that everything the last government was actually doing, no matter what they were saying publicly, was the only way that they were able to keep government and the public sector running.

The alternative was that the economy, quickly followed by the government and then all public services would simply collapse.

As you catch your breath, you realise that all the things that have been hurting people, whether it was the cost-of-living crisis, inflation, house building, immigration, the benefits crisis or many other of the other social issues you have promised to tackle are all connected to the economy.

You now understand that everything in The System relates to money and specifically to ‘growth’ and the GDP that sits behind it in some way.

People of all kinds, all ages and all backgrounds are struggling.

You saw it only too well as you campaigned before the election was held. Pain and suffering was lurking in just about every direction that you looked.

You are told that you can keep the economy running. Just as long as you keep finding credible reasons to spend.

‘Credible’ reasons are what you need to build and maintain the narrative that justifies the reason to borrow and print money. So that ‘growth’ hides all of the problems, and the money you have created keeps flowing in all the directions that The System demands that it should.

However, there is a cost.

The cost of ‘keeping the economy going’ will be that you cannot step back or away from any policy that already exists, no matter how you sell it to the public.

This will mean there will need to be a growing number of people within the population and reasons to spend on all the goods and services that they will need, so that you can justify spending more and more of that created money, and that money can keep being passed between all the different parts of the economy that provide goods and services to meet the basic needs of people.

This is the way that the problem and more importantly the size of that problem, can continue to be hidden from view.

You know what you promised. You know what you said.

You were going to be ‘The difference’, ‘The change’ and you are now faced with making things worse instead.

The question you now ask yourself; ‘Is it better just to keep managing things, in a state of ongoing but ‘managed decline’, or do you do the right thing and deliver on your promises, knowing that the immediate after effect is likely to be a complete ‘System Collapse’, that is probably now inevitable, but could be delayed if you ‘keep the plates spinning’ instead?

What would you do, if this was you…?

The Contemporary Politicians Dilemma PDF_Vers1_5Sep25Download

Why UK Food Security depends on supporting UK Farmers

The seemingly constant talk about the Farmers’ Protest March that is being held in London on Tuesday 19th March certainly appears to have captured many of our thoughts.

The Farmers Inheritance Tax changes that were introduced in the 2024 Budget in October are certainly set to have a BIG impact upon UK Farming as we know it.

But whilst it’s easy to argue that Farmers should be subject to the same taxes as everyone else, we must all remember that we need at least 2x healthy meals a day to survive, and that Food and our access to it is therefore just as important as the air that we breathe and the water that we drink.

Food Production and UK Farms that are supplying fresh, nutritious, Locally Produced Food are as such a Public Good.

Their existence is essential for this reason and there must be support for Farmers – just like all different kinds of businesses have that are focused only on profit – so that they can stay that way.

The change in the Budget tells us that Politicians don’t see the future role of our Farms that way.

So, it is important that all of us – whether we are Consumers, Farmers or both – understand what is really going on across the UK Food Chain that is making Politicians believe that the direction of Food Production and UK Food Security is not only safe, but also good for everyone and fundamentally OK.

The link below will take you to the full online text of Who Controls Our Food Controls Our Future, which is also a Free to Download PDF and an e-book for Kindle (£1.99 in the UK from Amazon) which runs through the complexity and layers of The Food Chain, and the truths that are hidden in plain sight, from our everyday view.

There’s a lot to consider, no matter what we already know or the particular or perhaps ‘informed’ perspectives that we all have. So please do find the time if you can to have a look through, as you are likely to have a lot more questions of your own about why we are not giving priority to UK Food Production and the importance of Our Farms when you do.

Thank you for your interest and support.

#food #FoodSecurity #FarmersProtest #farmers #farming #foodchain

To download a FREE PDF Copy of Who Controls Our Food Controls Our Future, Please CLICK HERE. Alternatively, if you would like to download the Book for Kindle at £1.99 (UK Price), please follow the link through to Amazon that follows immediately below:

Who Controls Our Food Controls Our Future | Kindle Book Now Available

UK Farming is now in an endgame-level crisis, and UK Food Security, or the guarantee that we will always have enough Food for us to eat, has disappeared out of the door.

The problem is we don’t even know it. We are experiencing a kind of Situational Bias on a mass scale, and many of those who hear the term ‘Food Security’ believe that the subject is about something entirely different.

We certainly don’t accept that the problems our Farmers face are even bigger than the Farmers themselves accept them to be.

Written and Published between the UK Budget on 30th October 2024, when the now infamous changes to Farm Inheritance Tax were announced, and The Farmers March in London on 19th November 2024, Who Controls Our Food Controls Our Future unpicks the layers of truth that surround and influence The Food Chain.

Using the metaphor of The Food Chain Onion, Adam peels back the layers to expose the roles and motives of a significant list of People and 3rd party organisations that influence what we eat, how our Food gets to us, what we pay for it, when and if we can afford to access it.

Sharing the many Food Chain Myths, Narratives and Shibboleths that are gaslighting us into accepting the many carefully crafted stories that govern our relationship with the Food we eat, Adam opens the door to understanding that Food Production and Supply is now so complicated, The Food Chain has become the perfect place for greed, profiteering and other maligned interests to hide and profit excessively whilst reshaping OUR Future – all in plain sight.

None of us can eat money to survive. No matter how much money we might have.