News preview 2010: Industry leaders look ahead

Hilary Benn

Farming and food production are really important to the future of the UK, and we need healthy farm businesses working within the supply chain.

Farming isn’t an easy job, we all know that and, as the flooding in Cumbria showed last month, farmers are increasingly on the front line of coping with climate change while always working hard to sustain profitability.

We know it will be crucial to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and get the message out that improving fertiliser management, technologies such as anaerobic digestion and management of slurries can help reduce carbon and save money.

Earlier in 2009 the Campaign for the Farmed Environment was launched – a pioneering partnership between government and industry – and I look forward to working with industry again this year to get the most from the inventiveness, resilience and adaptability of our farmers and growers and so ensure that Britain leads in showing how we can farm productively and look after the environment.

William Worsley

Barring the unknowable unknowns of one-in-a-1000-year flood, storm or drought events, 2010 will be the year before the policy storms.

The new EU Commission and Parliament will be communicating their ideas for the post 2013 CAP reforms, the EU budget review will come into the open, the re-elected or newly-elected UK government will be deciding on its priorities. The rural sector will be collectively girding itself for the public finance stringency to come. None of these are expected to result in wholesale changes next year. The industry has to consolidate and prepare itself for the tough times ahead.”

The biggest practical challenge is for the industry partnership to work with the government to integrate the multiple voluntary initiatives and advisory efforts on pesticides, nutrients, catchment sensitive farming, the Campaign for the Farmed Environment and Greenhouse Gases action plans into a coherent, manageable package for farmers. This is no small task.

Christianne Glossop

We have a new First Minister for Wales, Carwyn Jones. As a former rural affairs minister he will be well known to the agricultural industry. Along with our rural affairs minister, Elin Jones, he will be expecting us to continue driving forward our animal health and welfare priorities including the One Wales Commitment to vigorously pursue a programme of TB eradication in Wales.

Wales moves to annual testing for TB on 1 January, with all herds required to carry out pre-movement tests. Gamma interferon testing will be mandatory in new herd breakdowns in areas of low incidence.

In the spring, new TB legislation will come into force including changes to pre-movement testing and compensation. The final report on data emerging from TB Health Check Wales will be available in the spring/summer and the rural affairs minister will make a final decision on establishment of a pilot area, in which additional cattle control measures will be applied alongside a badger control strategy in 2010.

Richard Lochhead

2010 is going to be a landmark year in terms of establishing the future of agricultural support in Scotland. We have got to be proactive and I look forward to engaging with Europe on the CAP’s future.

I hope this will also be the year in which the signs of new confidence in the livestock sector mean there will be a slowing down of the decline in the country’s cattle and sheep numbers. And underpinning all of that will be the developments in the Scottish Government’s food and drink policy.

We will be keeping up the momentum with even more emphasis on local sourcing and we aim to support the food industry by taking Scotland’s reputation to a new level which will, in turn, bring benefits to grass roots agriculture.