Farming in the Community

We believe in democracy. We elect Members of Parliament and can vote them out at intervals. Sometimes some of them serve us ill while they have power through fiddling their expenses, as we are all too aware. Perhaps fiddling is an unparliamentary word but it seems right to me.

I was elected unopposed to be the Wiltshire County Councillor for Downton when I was in my 30s; I was at the time the youngest member of the Council. To my surprise I was very quickly elected to be the Education Committee chair for the School Meals subcommittee and was soon on panels making important recommendations about the viability of primary schools and the introduction of comprehensive and middle schools across the whole county.

I was, at the time, a vegetarian and, as a farmer and land agent who had been packed off to boarding school from the ages of 7 to 17, had absolutely no experience of state education. Perhaps this was considered to be an advantage. I visited dozens of tiny village schools. All those with less than 40 pupils on the roll felt threatened by closure. Some were so small that the children only experienced one teacher throughout their primary education.

I particularly remember our little group of counsellors and officers visiting Semley School which hoped to be saved by benefitting from the closure of the tiny school at Donhead. We were met by a row of School Managers; a terrifying line-up of retired military officers barking “over our dead bodies”. Semley survived our visit and has thrived ever since.

This has a bearing on agriculture because the same democracy leads to the appointment in this country of members of both parliaments, some unelected, as Secretary of State and ministers to head up whatever the department responsible for agriculture is currently called, it changes quite often. As do the ministers, most of whom are urban people totally ignorant about farming when they start, and are shuffled as soon as they start to learn the ropes. They are moved to another department where they begin another learning curve or are sent packing to the back benches if the stray from the party line.

I am glad to say that this is not the case in the management of the Common Agricultural Policy in Brussels. A Commissioner with expertise in the field is appointed for a five year term by a vote of the elected MEPs after very searching cross-party interviews and investigations. The Commissioner may come from one of the small countries such as Austria. A change takes place this year as Mariann Fischer Boel of Denmark, a favourite grandmother look-alike and good friend to farmers, finishes her term. She has been universally popular and was pressed to stay on, but retirement beckoned. Her replacement is the Romanian Dacian Ciolos He is a younger person who impressed at interviews. Does it matter that these people are not members of parliament if they are the best for the job, that they are not well known, or are not verging on celebrity status? The system works well so don’t knock it.

We await to find out what new policies are to be unveiled over the next five years. They will effect everyone in the food industry even those of us at Wallmead Farm currently coping with freezing temperatures.

Martin Shallcross