[2] Walters spent a year at the Abbey School in Reading, Berkshire, before winning a Foundation Scholarship at the Godolphin boarding school in Salisbury. We had implemented laws that were based on food values, and yet we werent prepared to look at that in other parts of the world. They have very different standards to us; they have big feedlot systems, they farm at serious scale. Get personalized recommendations, and learn where to watch across hundreds of We were put under a lot of pressure at various times to be part of the Peoples Vote, and call for another referendum. UKICE: Had you anticipated the Leave vote, from where you live and from all the meetings youd been having during the referendum campaign? They have two sons: Roland, who is married to Charlotte, and Philip, who is married to Northern Ireland are looking like they will carry on with the status quo. But of course, politically, it was enormously challenging. Given he was one of the greatest proponents in the Brexit debate, of isnt it great, food is going to be cheaper. What difference did it make to you in engaging with the Government when Michael Gove, on rehabilitation into the Cabinet, took over from Andrea Leadsom, and started to make a lot of noise about what post-Brexit policy might look like? That extraordinary feeling. I just wondered whether that perception of the farming sector is right, or if it was much more evenly split than that? We needed to be able to work together, to shape what the future needed to look like. UKICE: At the moment, we have this sort of asymmetric border, dont we? To what extent was the Government talking to you, or engaging with you, on its thinking on their common rulebook, which would obviously mean staying aligned to a lot of the agrifood regulations? That was the challenge. So, a no deal and I will stand by it forever and a day would have been absolutely disastrous for British agriculture. I would pose the question what does that mean for government buying standards? And Chequers definitely gave way to those conversations happening in a constructive manner, without doubt. Because of the size of our population, because of the size of the sector, food and farming employs one in eight people. What we have to recognise is none of these things can be done in isolation. At the moment, their demand is that we sign up to follow EU rules and the Government, as you know, is clear that we will not sign up to that. What we wanted for this country should be, and still should be and must be, about what we want from other countries too. I suppose you can say that, in the end, the voice was heard, even if it took three botched attempts to avoid it. MB: I think there were some. When you look at this country, 70% of it is rural. Youve got Lord Frost leading on the future of the UK new relationship. fivem gun crafting location; pros and cons of lifesource water system; usta friend at court 2022 handbook MB: I think, bearing in mind how vital our market is to them, they could see that it allowed a way through. And what I wanted to say was, Agriculture is the solution in all of this. I sat back down next to him and I said, What do you think? And he looked at me, slightly surprised, and he said, I think youre very brave. MB: No, it wasnt. UKICE: Just on that, the Government has also moved to be more flexible on using neonicotinoids than it was before-. How does it feel for the industry? So, there were, along this journey, some slightly heart-stopping moments, as to the road that we were on. Production of salad ingredients like tomatoes and cucumbers are expected to fall to the lowest levels since records began in 1985. I always remember Faisal Islam saying that agriculture had managed to beat the rest of manufacturing in getting its voice heard in this arena. Minette is published in almost 40 countries and has sold in excess of 25,000,000 copies of her books worldwide. Minette Batters (MB): Well, George has been in Defra a long time. Within six months of that new government I was conscious that wed led the standards campaign. There are different moving parts to all of these things that, I think, make it a challenge to resolve. But does the farming industry feel that its adapting okay, or are there surprising new challenges, unanticipated challenges, emerging? At the moment, I feel weve got a lot of warm words, and we just need to know the nuts and bolts of what the genuine ambition is for this country. She supplemented her salary by writing romantic novelettes, short stories, and serials in her spare time. But its a classic case of, youve got to pitch people. It has got friction, where none existed before. Things could go massively Were they particularly worried about that? Weve got higher standards, with many of the producers sitting above European level. We need to work collaboratively to incentivise a UK workforce. But it was always going to need a bespoke model. It was ideology based on three principles: A bonfire of regulation, the easiest trade deal in history, and more money for UK priorities, because we wouldnt be paying it into the EU. Were now in May, and looking at these changes coming in for 2022. And then, of course, just this wall of silence. Has farming and agriculture gone up the government agenda in prominence, now that its not just an obscure Agriculture Council that nobody really can understand, that comes back with a protected budget that gets implemented? We recognised how split they were, but all sides were united in that they had a complete thirst for information. With Theresa May, it was about trying to say, Were here, dont forget agriculture, because its going to be the complex area. What does that look like?. BiographyThe events that shaped Minettes life and career, Photo galleryA peek inside Minettes personal photo album, Charitable workOrganizations and causes Minette supports, Interview with Anne CattrellMinette talks about her life, Minette Walters 2019. So, we supported Chequers, as, interestingly, did Michael Gove. Or was it like the rest of the population, where views seemed to be fairly entrenched? Weve got to be able to look at, actually, how we enable these growers to have access to the workforce that they need. It was about saying that this needed to be fair and equitable to all. We know that agriculture is always a big facet of trade deals, particularly with the people that the EU has failed to do trade deals with. He was there as Minister of State for Farming beforehand, under Michael, so we knew George We then used the NFU Council, to identify the key issues, we brought together an options paper, and we looked at bringing together a whole host of task and finish groups. Minette Batters is the first woman to become President of the National Farmers' Union, representing 47,000 members. Did you go back and say to the NFU, This is what we now need to do? Walters's themes include isolation, family dysfunction, rejection, marginalisation, justice and revenge. What I did feel, and what I do feel, is enormous weight of responsibility to get this right. MB: No, its a massively significant issue. [7], In addition to full-length novels, Walters has written feature articles for magazines and the broadsheets, some short stories including "English Autumn, American Fall", and two novellas, The Tinder Box (1999), and Chickenfeed (2006). UKICE: And were there any sensible preparations that you could do, or that you were talking about Defra doing, in that eventuality? That, above all else, United Kingdom farmers remained the number one supplier of choice to their own marketplace. Do you think the Government has yet worked out beyond some of the things youve been worried about like the ban on live animal exports the opportunities of post-Brexit Britain, on regulating differently, more smartly, being more pro-innovation? That is a breaking of the manifesto commitment. So, Liam Fox was obviously very engaged at that time as Secretary of State at DIT on the opportunities of global trade. I think we were quite at arms length, I would say, from influencing the European thinking. MB: I think weve always recognised, from day one, how difficult Ireland is. And now, within the Agricultural Act of 2020, the Secretary of State for Defra has access to a multi-annual plan. Martin said, I think its going to be close but, without a doubt, it looks like were going to remain. HARDtalk. Now, what did preparation look like? I speak to my opposite number in France, Christiane Lambert, who is President of the FNSEA, the French version of the NFU, getting her to lobby the French government on why we need border control posts, Calais being pretty pivotal in all of this. MB: I still think that is undecided, effectively. Michael Gove was perhaps not in his most ideal Cabinet seat, but I think he did manage to rebrand himself with what had been deemed to be a graveyard department, to the benefit of the department. It was never going to be, for them, the same as remaining part of the single market. So, it was incredibly important for me to get to speak to Theresa May, and we were trying to just get agriculture to register on the Richter Scale. The Australian head negotiator heads up the Trans-Pacific negotiations as well. Retail is now very loyal to British sourcing, so were seeing good prices across a range of agricultural products. From my point of view, I wanted to keep the market, the business, alive, bearing in mind that these are perishable products that we are dealing with. That is still ongoing, and we still dont know what the future of checks is going to look like. It means that the future absolutely has to be got right, and delivery has to work. The union's president Minette Batters will make the call at their conference later today amid growing concerns about the implications of Brexit for farming - whether a deal is struck or not. For some sectors, if you take upland livestock, youre looking at an 80% drop in farm business income, which is enormous. Home; Service. 21 February 2023 Minette Batters: Food cannot be the poor relation to the environment Minette Batters, head of the National Farmers Union (NFU), doubles down on food security in the face of green farm subsidy reforms. Beat government by ten years? But then he left. The daffodil-growers in Cornwall will have faced enormous losses. We appointed Nick von Westenholz to head up a team of four specialist advisers to consider the implications and develop our strategy. At the end of the day, this will land on the Prime Ministers desk as to which way he wants to go. WebOn 19 April our Environmental Change & #FoodSecurity inquiry heard from @HenryDimbleby; @Minette_Batters, @NFUtweets; Peter Dawson, @dairyuk; @suepritch, @FFC_Commission; and Chris Brown, @asda. Trade is such dry policy, that a lot of people, particularly in the media, were not taking the time to understand it. The story contains many of the same themes that occur in her earlier books, and, along with its sequel, The Turn of Midnight, published in 2018, draws readers into the frightening reality of the Black Death. Are you convinced that theyve got the capacity to make this work? Minette Batters, who is the president of the National Farmers Union (NFU) of England and Wales and has been called the most powerful farmer in the UK, was So, that is all good. So, the Government has got to stick to its word on this. Verified account Protected Tweets @; Suggested users It runs, I think, central government and its departments for under a month. Minette joined IPC Magazines as a sub-editor in 1972 and became an editor of Womans Weekly Library the following year. Andrea Leadsom, a leading light of the Leave campaign, moves over to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), to replace Liz Truss, and the establishment of the Department for International Trade (DIT), to show that new trade deals were going to be a big thing for the new government. Or did you, at that stage, think, This is so catastrophic, its just not going to happen? So, lets talk about food, lets talk about the environment, animal welfare. I think they were clearly split though. I asked what he thought as the Votes were just starting to come in then, and I think a lot of people were in the same position as me. In this conversation. I definitely felt that was a moment in time. So, Australia is really just the start of what this is going to look like. Theyve been long-term involved in the impact assessment for these trade deals, so they know what is needed. MB: Yes. History will judge what we did harshly if we get it wrong, so we cannot afford to miss a beat. Minette Batters - President, National Farmers Union of England and Wales. Defra had always been a slightly second, third, ranked department, partly because so much of its policy was run from Europe rather than domestically. Were such a big organisation, representing 50,000 farmers across England and Wales. National Farmers Union is reportedly in talks to read more company news. We brought a massive coalition together of all farming organisations, nearly every NGO that is out there animal welfare experts, consumer groups, Jamie Oliver, Raymond Blanc, Prue Leith. She graduated from Trevelyan College, Durham in 1971 with a BA in French. IMDb is the world's most popular and authoritative source for movie, TV and celebrity content. The Mail on Sunday agreed to help promote the NFUs standards petition. Its been very much about get a degree, go to university, work in services. Walters's third novel, The Scold's Bridle, then won the CWA Gold Dagger, giving her a unique treble. As the May Government was starting to develop its vision of its Brexit, we had ministers, not least Liam Fox, talking about doing trade deals with the US, and the big summer 2017 bust-up over chlorinated chicken. There are a lot of high standards in America. I still believe that in the longer term, we will have to find ways with the EU to deliver less friction, because less friction equals less cost and thats to the benefit of both sides. Minette Batters (MB): Its a really odd bubble that were living in at the moment. How are you going to do that? Walters describes herself as an exploratory writer who never uses a plot scheme, begins with simple premises, has no idea 'whodunit' until halfway through a story, but who remains excited about each novel because she, along with her reader, wants to know what happens next. We didnt want protection of our food standards written in blood, we just wanted it put in ink. So, I think we pretty soon realised that this was going to be difficult. Her husband, Malcolm, is not involved You know, vote for this, because it will be cheaper. The catastrophic part came from the fact that, with more than 70% of our exports going into the EU, we would face their very high tariff wall which, for agricultural products like beef and lamb and dairy, was an impossible economic ladder to climb and at the same time, as a nation we import more than 30% of the food we consume from the EU. So, thats what we did in that very first instance. And why did you decide on your ultimate tactic, as we headed towards the referendum? UK in a Changing Europe (UKICE): Were now about five months into the end of the transition, five months into the new global migration scheme. That takes me back to the point where I said that trade policy is so complex, its dull as ditch water, and so many people, politically, had not got to grips with the massive challenge, particularly the issues we would see on the island of Ireland. Which means there were nearly a billion less eggs produced in 2022 compared to 2019. UKICE: You seemed to have managed to at least persuade Michael Gove, Secretary of State, of some of that, because he was on the other side of that argument with DIT that summer. He was there as Minister of State for Farming beforehand, under Michael, so we knew George very, very well. He had said, on behalf of the NFU, that it was in farmings best interests to join the Common Market. WebMinette met her husband Alec Walters while she was at Durham and they married in 1978. And what I learnt quite early on, and has subsequently become a key element of NFU work, was that if you have a problem, work up the solution. MB: No, we immediately got our thinking together. NFU President Minette Batters UK egg production has fallen to its lowest level in nine years. Within four months, it had won the Crime Writers' Association John Creasey award for best first novel[3] and had been snapped up by 11 foreign publishers. The romantic novelettes were written in approximately two weeks and published under a pseudonym that remains a secret. She graduated from Trevelyan College, Durham in 1971 with a BA in French. UKICE: In March 2019, Daniel Kawczynski said hed vote for the Withdrawal Agreement, given the negative prospects of no deal exit to the farming industry. What we want is four countries that are doing, effectively, the same thing, otherwise we will distort our own internal market. So, there was that seasonal focus. We must make sure that even the poorest in our society have access to high quality British food, which they currently do. They have two sons, Roland and Philip. Although weve left the EU, weve left transition, we havent achieved trade at scale with the rest of the world, in any shape or form, nor have the aid schemes changed or been reduced yet. That isnt going to happen overnight, because weve actively pushed people away from doing those jobs. Real life consequences The first country to implement animal welfare legislation was the UK. UKICE: You dont represent farmers in Northern Ireland, because theyre represented by the Ulster Farmers Union. UKICE: When you got over the total shock and start regrouping, youre facing the prospect that, despite your stated position that, on balance, it was better for UK farming to remain, youre going to have to cope with the outcome of a Leave vote. The novella is based on the 1908 murder of Caroline Luard. But that F4 group is still trying to work through these thorny areas. But Defra, government, really only focused on bail-out packages in a no deal scenario, that would allow farmers to effectively restructure. So, there is a lot of water, I would say, to go under the bridge before that question can be answered. I just wondered if this was done in concert with you was this George Eustice acting as the NFUs representative in Parliament? Minette was the first crime/thriller writer to win three major prizes with her first three books. We did still have the practical issue though to register as either Remain or Leave with the Electoral Commission so as not to fall foul of the impending spending limits on our activity. Minette met her husband Alec Walters while she was at Durham and they married in 1978. Minette Batters is the current president of the National Farmers Union (NFU) of England and Wales, a position she has held for three years. UKICE: One way of making that operation much easier would have been to sign up to alignment, or greater alignment, on SPS in the TCA, but none of that really seemed to come to fruition. Do you think that the Brexit that has played out so far is at least meeting their expectations, in terms of what new opportunities it would bring? NFU President Minette Batters tells us why it's so important to Movies. So, once youd gone by those, you were into a no deal scenario by default. Photograph: Adrian How worried were you that the Government was very keen on a deal with the US? Fundamentally, we need to be producing much more of our fruit and veg here. MB: I think there was an element of thinking, They can never do this, because it will be so bad. We wanted government to put its money where its mouth was. Scotland is talking about maintaining the same levels of direct support, so an area-based payment linked to sustainable farming. If were going to continue with a policy that is about raising standards in this country, and not asking the same for other countries, thats going to have big impact on our farmers and on our food system. We knew it would be a lose-lose to try and lobby, effectively, for a race to the bottom. Thats what I remember most, nobody saying anything. Within four months, it had won the Crime Writers Association John Creasey award for best first novel and had been snapped up by 11 foreign publishers. As part of the British project 'Quick Reads', to encourage literacy amongst adults with reading difficulties, Walters wrote a 20,000-word novella called Chickenfeed. MB: I dont think we should underestimate the challenge you refer to of, not only piloting policy, but piloting delivery. MB: Well, Brexit wont be felt until its happened, but the impact hasnt happened yet. But ultimately, there were two sides to all of this, and the UK wasnt the only party in the negotiations. In a farming business, when youre looking at the long-term, youre putting rams with the sheep, youre putting bulls with cows, youre planting crops, all of which are focused on the following year, so youre having to plan a long time ahead. Webshreveport obituaries minette batters family. Youve got Liz Truss leading on trade with the rest of the world. MB: I think they were in a difficult position. Youve got to have agriculture as a key part of trade policy. Agricultural Acts dont come along very often 1947, 1920 its over a 70-year gap. Covid-19 has probably really shone a light on our diets, that a lot of them are not good diets, and we all need to have more fruit and veg in them. So, the CAP was a multi-annual budget that sat outside of parliamentary cycles, so you got the budget, which I think annoyed others, in the NHS and education why did agriculture have special treatment? I had a call the other day, with COPA-COGECA, listening to the Commission and DG SANTE. The NFU wanted MPs to have more say on trade of agrifood. UKICE: Do you think the Department for International Trade and Defra now have a unified view, or is this battle still being played out within government, as opposed to outside government? We established that body, because we realised this was going to be massive, it was going to mean change, and we would have to think and operate differently, in order to satisfy our members needs for knowledge on all of this. Weve got the climate here to be growing it. WebMinette has also been a member of NFU Governance Board and served as NFU Deputy President for four years from 2014 to 2018, before being elected as president in February On that basis, it was catastrophic. But there was also a level of thinking, Well, it could just end up being no-deal by default. The Best Foreign Honkaku Mystery of the Decade, Vice-Lieutenant and Deputy Lieutenants of Dorset, "Minette Walters announces first book in decade and retirement from crime fiction", "The Siege of Lyme Regis Dorset History Centre blog", "1349 by Minette Walters - Gregory & Company Authors' Agents", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Minette_Walters&oldid=1148375305, Short description is different from Wikidata, All articles with vague or ambiguous time, Vague or ambiguous time from October 2012, Articles with unsourced statements from October 2012, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0. UKICE: Did you get a sense that government actually appreciated the lengths of those lead times in farming? By India Bourke Did you think, I need this like a hole in the head, I could just go back to my farm and live a quiet life, rather than get stuck into this political morass? Did you target any of the backbenchers who were holding out? UKICE: If you look at the whole period together, farming is obviously one of those areas where the big decisions used to be taken in Brussels, but theyre now being taken in a mix of London, Cardiff, Edinburgh. The EU, of course, are taking that to say, Products are coming into the UK so easily, not getting checked, this is going to be your policy for the rest of the world. She runs the farm largely on her own, and her husband works in another industry. National Farmers' Union president Minette Batters has urged ministers to tackle an absolute crisis in the food sector, saying that she is determined to solve this situation. I think Im right in saying that we were one of the first trade bodies, across any sector, to commission economic analysis and absolutely the first in the agri-food space. But his way of operating is what I would call big tent politics. To undermine our farmers, when you want them to have regulation that costs a lot of money, and undermine them with cheap products coming in that dont even meet the first rung of the ladder, was going to do one thing, and that was going to put our farmers out of business. Now with correct twitter handle! [5] The first of these novels is The Last Hours, set during the Black Death, followed by a sequel, The Turn of Midnight. So, we kicked off this campaign. You didnt know what your workforce was going to look like, you didnt know what the future policy was going to look like. Still, the same Chequers discussions are being played out. MB: I think, genuinely, probably nobody wanted it to play out how its played out, which has been long and protracted and divisive. I think, by then, there was quite a realisation in the Johnson-led administration that food was important. I know where that negotiating team are, so, either one side or the other side has to capitulate between now and June. I think it is always challenging when you work with a majority government. MB: Lord Frost has been the difficult one to date. It was around that time, and certainly when I came in, that I said, Weve got to start talking food, because food is what resonates with people, farming doesnt. WebMinette Batters NFU President Minette runs a tenanted family farm in Wiltshire. Minette Batters is the first female President of the National Farmers' Union in its 111-year history. So, that was the conversation, literally, with Theresa May she hadnt realised how complex SPS was. bubble tea consumption statistics australia. So, I am enormously worried, because the Government has committed, publicly, time and time again, that it will not undermine our farmers. She won well over 30 races in her own right which included racing at All sorts of different people, in different places, dealing with different things. Walters was the first crime/thriller writer to win three major prizes with her first three books. UKICE: But this was a government that made very clear that it was willing to contemplate no deal, to get out by 31 October. I think most definitely, in the run-up to those no deals, many farmers were thinking, This really does look terrifying. abril 26, 2023 0 Visualizaes jason elliott, newsom. Yet were hearing about a race to achieve a trade deal with Australia before the G7 Summit in Cornwall in June. UKICE: Rather intriguingly, George Eustice, given his background, put down one of the indicative votes proposing UK accession to EFTA. What was your expectation about how the Government would involve farming representatives in the development of their position on Brexit, going forward?
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