U.K. farmers seek aid

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 32819, 20 January 1972, Page 7

U.K. farmers seek aid

(N.Z. Press Assn.—Copyright)

LONDON, Jan. 19.

British farmers need support amounting to more than £loom in guaranteed prices to enable them to produce more food and save on imports, according to the president of the National Farmers’ Union (Mr Henry Plumb).

Given that aid to expand the agricultural industry, they could cut Britain’s import bill by £4oom a year within five years, Mr Plumb told the annual meeting of the N.F.U. in London.

Farm output in the 60s increased by 25 per cent, but, in real money terms, the farmers’ total income at the end of' the decade was i slightly lower than at the beginning, Mr Plumb said: “We were employing, incidentally, 28 per cent fewer workers,” he said. “Our costs had parted company with the-law of gravity.

“Consumer prices have jumped 10 per cent in the last 12 months and, just to stay where they were last year, farmers have to earn j another £6om this year. “To bring back ’their income to the level of the mid-

’6os, they will need another £3om to £4om.

“Unless our net income i rises this year by about 15 per cent, we will have shown no real improvement.” Mr Plumb emphasised that Britain’s farmers would not benefit from Common Market prices until they overtook home-guaranteed prices. “The Government has its own domestic and international reasons for not raising food prices too quickly,” he went on. “So where is the cash for new investment and equipment to come from?

, “It can only come from 'higher guaranteed prices, which will not only cover increased costs, but will provide a really significant injection of capital.

“To evade this issue would be to run away from realities, to turn again into the dead end of the ’6os, and, once again, to give us exhortations instead of cash.”