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Ross Smith, Head of Policy and Research at the North-East Chamber of Commerce »
Julian Christopher from Footprint Public Relations, on media and marketing »
Norma Foster from the North East Regional Portal writes about e-business »
Ian Brown, Northumberland farmer and businessman writes about the agricultural industry »
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Paul Williamson from Deloitte »Dear Defra
I've had to write you a letter because like 15% of farmers in the region you have not sent the payment that is due to us! Now before you hide behind the "we don't have to pay you before the 30th June" may I remind you it was the 8th of August last year....no interest yet!
You know the crazy thing about grant funding on farms - or indeed anything else - it is the risk of distortion of the market and the forces of capitalism taking advantage and not paying a fair price at the farmgate!
So what is the answer.....my wife has written Defra a poem, the friendly man at RPA asked if it was a nice poem....I looked at my metaphoric wellies and said I thought not!
What do the RPA do with a letter, copy of SAGE entires for the single payment 2006/2007 and a poem by a farmers wife? Well according to the friendly young - and increasingly as I enter middle age they are young - they scan them.
The RPA was set an impossible task a few years ago and a £250million annual payment to disperse £3billion is crazy but more crazy is the average hill farmer getting £40,000 of grant but only making £5,000 profit to live on and reinvest!! This system can not work. The ICAEW inform us that 95% of the profit last year of farmers was in the form of subsidy and pig farmers this week show that rising wheat prices are making for a £20/pig loss.
Now Simon - my token friend in the 'city' said...clearly your farming friends are producing products capable of displacement? At the commodity end of the spectrum the world is in uncharted waters with cereal stocks halving from 20 to 10 weeks stock so anything might happen. Either way the few buyers who buy from the many sellers are clearly allowing for the subsidy and the fact most farmers are hefted to the ground they farm and wedded to production is causing long periods of low profitability.
One irony is that often as the general economy goes into recession something unforeseen happens in farming and it improves for a short while - it maybe what keeps us all going!
My message to Defra is that a letter is nice but a poem is better.
Remember no rhyme no reason
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