Oliver Walston: A rich harvest of lies, exaggeration and hypocrisy

Like the little boy who cried wolf too often, farmers are paying the penalty for decades of scaremongering

The farmers of Britain went on strike yesterday. The problem is that nobody seems to have noticed. A radical group called Farmers for Action, supported by the Green Party, persuaded some dairy farmers not to sell their milk for 24 hours. Their objective was to publicise the fact that British agriculture is on the edge of bankruptcy. Whilst their tactics may be bizarre, their anger and fear are very genuine.

Once upon a time many years ago, when summers were long, lazy and hot, and Dennis Compton scored three thousand runs in a season, everybody loved a farmer. We had, after all, dug mightily for victory and as a result had fed the nation. Nobody noticed – or even cared – that the brussels sprouts were soggy and the potatoes scabby. Meat was rationed, fruit was scarce and supermarkets were inconceivable. But – or so the story goes – we were all happy.

In those sunlit days the National Farmers' Union was the most powerful lobbying organisation in the UK. Such was its power that with each passing year guaranteed prices rose, and with them came a vast array of subsidies which paid farmers to grow more food, apply more fertiliser, grub up trees and rip out hedges. Not a protest was heard from the public or the politicians.

Decades passed. Whitehall withered and Brussels burgeoned. The Common Agricultural Policy served only to increase the size of the cornucopia which disgorged its goodies into the bank accounts of every farmer in the land. For nearly three decades, from the 1970s to the 1990s, British farmers enjoyed a prosperity of which their fathers and grandfathers could never have dreamt. The economics of the lunatic asylum reached their nadir (or apogee if you happened to be a farmer) in 1993, when the price of wheat rose sharply and – glory of glories – so did the subsidy from Brussels paid to compensate farmers for a predicted fall in price!

Throughout this period it might be supposed that the farmers of Britain would at least have been happy, satisfied and silent. We had, after all, won a lottery for which we had not even bought a ticket. But old habits die hard. Indeed when it comes to the NFU, old habits grow ever stronger. Which is why the loudest noise in the British countryside was the sound of the NFU telling anyone who would listen that the farmers of Britain were suffering terribly. The solution was the same as ever: higher prices and more subsidies.

The glory days of British agriculture are a distant memory. For a decade the industry has staggered from crisis to crisis while the subsidies have shrunk like an icicle in spring. Today the Government yawns as farming totters on the edge of meltdown. The two pillars of British agriculture, cereals and milk, are in crisis. Dairy farmers now receive 16p for a litre of milk, down from a high of 25p. Arable farmers are even worse off. Wheat this harvest is worth £54 a tonne, down from £110 seven years ago.

It is ironic – even poignant – that, when a recent report suggested that 30 per cent of organic farmers are making a loss, the media was surprised and sympathetic. Yet at least 90 per cent of conventional arable farmers are today making a loss and nobody cares. Why?

The reason is as simple as it is sad. Nobody believes the NFU, let alone the newer groups such as Farmers for Action (which does not have NFU sanction), any longer. Like the little boy who cried wolf once too often, British farmers are paying the penalty for decades of scaremongering and exaggeration. Had farmers' leaders at least managed to button their lips while the subsidy waterfall was in spate, there is a chance that today they might be believed. But inside every farmer – from the Lincolnshire tycoon in his Bentley to the Caithness crofter on his Fordson – is a peasant trying to stay in. Among the fundamental characteristics of peasants are congenital pessimism and a mistrust of outsiders.

The other primary characteristic of the British farmer is hypocrisy. He complains that the supermarkets have too much power yet he himself refuses to form marketing groups which could be equally strong. He resents the fact that the retail trade sells his lamb and beef for the maximum price the market will bear, yet when he himself takes his animals to market he asks the auctioneer to sell to the highest bidder. He attends demonstrations protesting the import of foreign meat and produce before getting into his Japanese four-wheel-drive jeep to return to the farm. He complains endlessly of government interference yet is only too happy to accept one third of his income from government handouts.

These attitudes are reflected by the NFU. Reform is improbable since the organisation today is less democratic than Stalin's politburo; for a membership of 60,000, 89 men and one woman elect the president. For generations, the core belief of the NFU has been based on the premise that a farmer – simply because he produces food – is entitled to privileges which are not granted to any other profession. It is why most British farmers today feel that they have a god-given right to farm.

Only when the NFU accepts that its members deserve no special treatment from society will we be able to rejoin society. Until then farmers will remain outcasts – a fate we richly deserve.

The author is a farmer in Cambridgeshire