Farmers: Productivity

Environment, Food and Rural Affairs – in the House of Commons at on 9 December 2021.

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Photo of Greg Smith Greg Smith Conservative, Buckingham

What steps he is taking to help farmers increase productivity.

Photo of Victoria Prentis Victoria Prentis The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

There is great potential for farmers to continue to increase productivity in an environmentally sustainable way. Last month we launched the farming investment fund, which will encourage that through, for instance, investment in new technology, new equipment and small infrastructure projects.

Photo of Greg Smith Greg Smith Conservative, Buckingham

I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s answer, and also for the time that she took to visit farmers in my constituency last month. How will the investment fund support agri-tech innovation, which is surely a pathway to prosperity and profitability for Buckinghamshire farmers?

Photo of Victoria Prentis Victoria Prentis The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

The fund is broad, and we are willing to look at all sorts of programmes within it. Some great solutions could include new livestock feeds that might reduce methane emissions, robotics in horticulture—I have seen some very good examples around the country—and bio-fertilisers, which we are particularly interested in developing at the moment.

Photo of Dave Doogan Dave Doogan Shadow SNP Spokesperson (Agriculture and Rural Affairs), Shadow SNP Spokesperson (Manufacturing)

Far from helping farmers to increase productivity, this Government are demonstrating their keen ability to get in the way of productivity. We have a crisis in pig exports to China and seed exports to Northern Ireland and the EU, there are export health certificates for Scottish goods going to the EU but none for the EU’s goods coming to Scotland, there are the tariffs on jute sacks, and there is also the gross shortage and obscurity of the availability of labour. Would the Minister like to apologise to farmers in Scotland and say how she intends to improve this dynamic?

Photo of Victoria Prentis Victoria Prentis The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

I am indeed concerned about farmers in Scotland, but that is because they are not benefiting from the revolution in agricultural support that we are undertaking in this country, and I am afraid that the Scottish Government are holding them back.