of labour and a demand that farmers produce more at less cost to the environment. my guest today is minette batters. she farms right here, she s also president of the national farmers union. as a society, are we asking our farmers for the impossible? minette batters, welcome to hardtalk. thank you for having me. it s a great pleasure to be on yourfarm. and the sun is shining and, in some ways, you would think the sun would be shining on farmers. food prices are spiralling higher. you would think that would be good news forfarmers. is it? it s quite extraordinary. i don t think, in my lifetime, i have ever faced into anything like the cost inflation that we are facing with our inputs now. so, we re seeing triple digit inflation on fertiliser, we ve seen diesel costs up by 57%, feed costs up by nearly 60%. these are huge price pressures. you have chosen to alight upon the price pressures, i chose to start about talking about the prices you are receiving because we know that co
my guest today is minette batters, she farms right here, she s also president of the national farmers union. as a society, are we asking our farmers for the impossible? minette batters, welcome to hardtalk. thank you for having me. it s a great pleasure to be on yourfarm and the sun is shining, and in some ways you would think the sun would be shining on farmers. food prices are spiralling higher, you would think that would be good news forfarmers, is it? it s quite extraordinary. i don t think in my lifetime i have everfaced into anything like the cost inflation we are facing with our inputs now. we are seeing triple digit inflation on fertiliser, we ve seen diesel costs up by 57%, feed costs up by nearly 60%, these are huge price pressures. you have chosen to alight upon the price pressures, i ve chose to start about talking about the prices you are receiving because we know that consumers are struggling to meet the prices of the basic food stuffs that they buy at the super
farming and farmers in this country simply don t carry that kind of clout. you re their union boss. so, where are you going wrong? i think you re wrong. we led a campaign that bought all chefs, all farming organisations, all environmental ngos and we got a million people in under a month signing a petition, saying that our food standards here mattered on animal welfare and environmental protection and they didn t want to see them sacrificed in trade deals. so, people in this country do care. i think politically, they tend to think farming doesn t matter, it s a backwater. why? i think a long time in the eu, we took food for granted. we had trade flows that went backwards and forwards. you can buy food, whatever you want whenever you want, 21w, so i think we have taken our food for granted. and isn t it partly because you have ceded so much power in terms of the food supply
country simply don t carry that kind of clout. you re their union boss, where are you going wrong? i think you re wrong. we led a campaign that brought all chefs, all farming organisations, all environmental ngos and we got a million people in under a month signing a petition saying ourfood standards mattered on animal welfare and environmental protection, and they didn t want to see them sacrificed in trade deals. so people in this country do care. politically, they tend to think farming doesn t matter, it s a backwater. why? a long time in the eu, we took food for granted, we had trade flows that went backwards and forwards, you could buy food, whatever you want whenever you want, 21w, so i think we have taken our food for granted. isn t that partly because you have ceded so much power in terms of the food supply chain