Three years on and we still haven't learned anything
In 1973, the year we joined the European Union – which was then the EEC – headlines in the farming press said "farmers have the right to know what future the Government has in mind for them"
Well, fancy! That's a quote from March 2017's Farmers Weekly. And now in 2019 the same is clearly true.
Farmers still don't know what's ahead for them, and in or out, we won't know until the deed is done. Also the reports were full of "resilience at farm level is key, but common sense will be crucial among politicians and trade negotiators... to build an agricultural policy which is not based on flawed principles of the past."
I'm not sure which flawed principles in particular they mean, as they mostly seemed to be flawed, and we certainly haven't learned anything in the last three years about future plans and agreements.
The CLA (Country Land and Business Association) predicted that "designing a British agricultural support policy ready for the day (!) when the UK leaves will be impossible", and they believed "the Government should admit they can't possibly design a new one in two years, extend the current funding beyond 2019, and manage the Basic Payment Scheme at the same time".
This is political- speak, of course, but what it seems to mean to us, the consumer, is that we have no idea how much food will cost on the day, and it would seem to be even less predictable now we haven't got a decision on in or out.
The cost of food relies on a couple of things.
Firstly, if we wish to be as self-sufficient as possible, food costs will depend on how much farming is subsidised, because if it's not, prices in the shops will rocket. This is because at present, with the environmental constraints which govern livestock and crop production, the prices paid to farmers don't cover cost of production, so in future the true price will be passed to the customer.
Secondly, if farmers can't make enough money to live, they'll stop producing, and we'll resort to imports, and then we'll be at the mercy of tariffs, penalties and lower welfare and health standards. So we have no idea what the cost of food will be on the day.
There were lots of impolite comments from farmers, just to say they were worried.
Who knows about the future? Not I.
Rosemary Allen is a retired livestock farmer living near Ellesmere
