A pivotal time for Birmingham food and farming

With the dust settling after the general election, have you ever stopped to wonder just how the result might affect the food you eat each day?

Have you ever wondered how it could affect you and others across Birmingham?

The answer is probably more than you might think.

Almost every constituency in the country contains farms and those that don’t are home to businesses involved in the production and distribution of the food farmers grow.

Birmingham has a very healthy food, retail and hospitality sector that touches most of us in some way. Despite the area’s rich industrial and manufacturing heritage, agriculture more than plays its part in the regional economy.

These farms on the urban fringe play an important role in connecting urban populations to where their food comes from.

Birmingham is home to Cadbury and Aston Manor Cider among others and has a real wealth of food manufacturers supporting families across the city, not to mention our cafes, supermarkets, independents and artisan food businesses.

On their own the county farms that back this in the West Midlands generate £1.4 billion and also help underpin the wider tourism industry.

British farmers and growers produce some of the highest quality, environmentally friendly food in the world. And we know Birminhgham shoppers are keen to buy homegrown food whenever they can, with 83% of people believing British farms should grow as much food as they can to provide national food security. As farmers and growers, we want to provide more of the food you love as well as look after the countryside we are all so proud of.

The general election campaign saw widespread acknowledgement that food security is national security.

What we – and you – now need are practical policies and investment which allow us to deliver on our shared mission to produce more great British food and provide jobs and stimulate growth throughout the UK through the food and drink sector.

The NFU is keen to engage with MPs Tahir Ali, Birmingham Hall Green and Moseley; Laurence Turner, Northfield; Ayoub Khan, Perry Barr and Al Carns, Selly Oak while maintaining and bolstering relationships with MPs Preet Kaur Gill, Edgbaston; Wendy Morton, Aldridge-Brownhills; Liam Byrne, Hodge Hill and Solihull North; Shabana Mahmood, Ladywood; Paulette Hamilton, Erdington and Jess Phillips, who represents Yardley.

In a cost-of-living crisis, farming’s ability to provide affordable, climate friendly and high welfare food will be critical for families in the city and across the country, as well as underpinning the UK’s largest manufacturing sector, food and drink, worth more than £100 billion.

To enable us to achieve all this, we need the new government to prioritise setting an increased multi-year agriculture budget for the duration of the next Parliament. This isn’t just ‘money for farmers’ - it’s funding that will give farmers the confidence to invest for the future and help make the government’s aims around sustainable food production, food security, the environment and climate possible.

The food and drink we produce in and around Birmingham has a reputation for excellence and is in demand around the world. To maintain this reputation, it is vital that the new government commits to the establishment of core production standards to ensure we will not be undercut by imported food produced to lower standards.

And we know you agree – more than one million of you signed our food standards petition in 2020 calling for our food standards to be safeguarded.

A secure and resilient supply of homegrown food can only be built on a fair and transparent supply chain that shares the risks involved in food production evenly and gives farmers confidence.

As the custodians of our great British countryside, we share the new government’s ambition to improve the environment and farmers are at the forefront of delivering new legislated environment targets. We will need to continue to adapt and make improvements on our farms to support plans to tackle water quality and to mitigate the devastating impact of flooding.

All of these actions will need proper investment and plans developed with those managing the land.

Working together with all our politicians to achieve these ambitions will be good for farmers, good for the country and good for you.

It will mean you get more of the British food you know and love and ensure farmers and growers have the confidence to build profitable, sustainable food producing businesses that contribute to jobs and growth across Birmingham and beyond. And it will mean government and the wider country will have a safe and secure supply of the food we can produce in an increasingly volatile and uncertain world.