South Shropshire farmers to benefit from new Lib Dem policy

Former NFU Deputy President - and life long farmer - Stuart Roberts won overwhelming support at this week's Lib Dem Bournemouth Conference for a major new policy to support UK farmers.

Calling for a ‘fair deal for farmers’, key points include a £1bn uplift to the new Environmental Land Management Grants [ELMS] farmers can now bid for. In response to many farmers’ concerns about the complexity of the new grants on offer, the policy calls for ‘fully funding and resourcing the Agricultural Development and Advisory Service [ADAS]’ so that it can ‘provide all farmers with the support and training they need’.

Recognising the challenges to farmers of the current lack of food import checks the policy calls for ‘ensuring all imports meet UK environmental and animal welfare standards’. It also proposes a ‘proper seasonal worker system to allow our farmers to get access to the workforce they need’.

"I farm myself and until February last year I was the deputy president of the National Farmers Union. I left the organisation to join the Liberal Democrats’ said Stuart Roberts to the Conference. 'In recent years farming has been put under threat - and public services in rural areas have been under- invested in for too long and many have been left to crumble."
"We would immediately increase our farming budget by £1 billion year, so schemes are meaningful and investment decisions that help both food and the environment become the easy option. Every farm is different and we need to ensure every farm has an opportunity to use those schemes that suit them. Every farm will be properly funded and supported” Mr Roberts proposed.

"The farmers I’ve spoken to are very concerned about the demands of DEFRA’s new grants, with a whole raft of new application procedures and timetables. With the challenges of fuel and other cost hikes many are ‘land rich but cash poor’ - for small farmers this can obviously be a real worry” says Chris Naylor, who spoke in the debate. "I know a local farmer who lost £20,000 because he missed a deadline by a couple of days."

"This new Lib Dem policy tackles this head on" he continued. "Our Lib Dem Rural Affairs spokesman Tim Farron MP has also proposed that if the new DEFRA grant schemes aren’t ready, farms’ Basic Payment Scheme should be continued for now."

“As well as supporting this new policy I spoke in the debate to pay tribute to local Shropshire farmers I know who go the extra mile to support their local communities - farmers near me for instance, at Gorsty Bank Farm, Brow Farm, Bullocks Moor, Womerton, Dorrington. They cut our hedges, they help fix the playgrounds, they’re even in the local panto!'