Farming

Red Poll cattle graze in the Suffolk River Valleys Environmentally Sensitive Area and the National Trust's National Reserve at Orford Ness. Photo: CPRE

Help beef and sheep farmers get a fair deal
Many sheep and beef farmers are operating at a loss and may give up farming with serious consequences for the management of the countryside. But you can do something to help, by buying British beef and lamb and supporting the National Farmer’s Union (NFU) new campaign, Why Beef and Sheep Farming Matters which was launched in November. CPRE is a campaign partner because we believe livestock farming is essential to maintaining the character and quality of landscapes, our wildlife habitats and for our rural communities. The campaign is urging supermarkets to ensure beef and sheep farmers are paid a fair price for their produce.

The countryside at stake
Without farmers to maintain our countryside, familiar landscape features such as hedgerows, drystone walls, pastures, meadows, woods, and traditional barns, that contribute to the unique character of the English countryside, could disappear. Livestock farming is particularly important to the countryside, as a key part of local food networks and for maintaining landscape character and wildlife habitats.

An example of how livestock farming helps maintain wildlife habitats is the Red Poll breed of Suffolk cattle that graze an Environmentally Sensitive Area and National Nature Reserve at Orford Ness ensuring the habitat is suitable for nesting waders. This is just one example and was featured in our report The Real Choice about the benefits of local food networks.

You can find out more about the work farmers do in maintaining the countryside in our report Living Landscapes which reveals the cost to farmers of managing our landscape features.

What you can do
As part of the Why Beef and Sheep Farming Matters campaign the NFU has produced a postcard for you to complete and hand in to stores and supermarkets to persuade them to support the campaign and urge them to ensure farmers are paid a fair price for beef and sheep.

A campaign leaflet is also available.

> What you can do

A fair price for milk
The Farmers Guardian, Country Living magazine and Waitrose are running a campaign to get a fair price for milk produced by British farmers. A litre of milk sells for around 50p in the supermarket or on the doorstep. According to a recent National Farmers' Union and Royal Association of British Dairy Farmers survey it costs 21p to produce a litre of milk, but the average farm gate price for milk for 2006, was just under 18p per litre (Defra). This is the lowest annual average price since 2002 (Milk Development Council).

Farmers want to find out where the difference between what they receive when the milk leaves the farm gate and what it is sold for on the supermarket shelf and doorstep is going. Latest figures from the Milk Development Council show that over the last four years an average of 78 producers per month have quit dairy production in England. Some farming organisations have serious concerns that Britain may need to import milk in the future.

CPRE welcomes moves to ensure there is transparency in the pricing and supply of milk. We believe the price a producer receives for their product should reflect the cost of production and the quality of that product. Environmentally sustainable production should be rewarded by the sales of their produce to consumers and support from agri-environment schemes.

We’re concerned about the effects on the environment of a decline in dairy production. As our report Living Landscapes revealed the countryside is heavily reliant on farmers to manage our landscapes and some habitats rely on a mix of sheep and cattle grazing, sometimes extensively (i.e. over large areas of land) to maintain the diversity of animal and plant species that inhabit them.

As the number of dairy farms declines the sizes of herds is likely to increase, as the remaining farmers try to get economies of scale. This could mean higher concentrations of animals on the best grazing land. And that could lead to damage to soil and water quality. This could be due to a number of reasons. More chemical fertiliser might be needed to make grass grow more vigorously in fields used for grazing and for silage making. There could be increased soil erosion caused by the trampling of the grass by cattle’s hooves (a process known as ‘poaching’). Growing maize to feed cattle, also means more soil is exposed to erosion by wind and rain. There are pollution risks from land containing higher levels of nutrients resulting from intensively fertilised fields. Finally, this intensification of production also means larger buildings are needed in the countryside to house the animals; this could damage the character of some our landscapes.

CPRE believes agri-environment schemes must be properly funded so that farmers do not have to rely on intensified production practices which damage our landscapes, wildlife habitats and local economies.

Ideally, consumers should try to buy milk from local farmers, either directly or at local shops or by using a milkman to keep the supply chain short and to sustain the local food economy. Our report the Real Choice highlighted the importance of local food networks and the complex interactions between producers, processors and retailers.