We are only a week away from the General Election now, and so we wanted to review what the various party manifestos say about the agriculture and food sectors, and also to explore whether any of them went as far as to mention agritech by name.
The good news is that all of them say something about food and farming, and moreover they recognise that food security is important. The Conservatives and Lib-Dems are most explicit – with the Tories committing to a legally binding target for UK food security and Ed Davey’s party saying they will introduce a national food strategy. This will be aimed at ensuring food security and they say it will help to tackle rising food prices.
The Conservatives and Lib-Dems also lead the pack in setting out additional funding commitments for British farming, with both saying they will increase the UK’s agriculture budget by £1bn, in part to offset and replace the lost EU funds that have resulted from Brexit. The Labour manifesto fails to indicate any sort of budgetary commitment to agriculture, which is most unfortunate and leaves the sector effectively outside the door of 11 Downing Street with a begging bowl – where they may gave to jostle for position with other unmentioned parts if manufacturing and industry.
The Conservatives also commit to holding an annual “food summit” to put food security at the top of the agenda on a regular and routine basis – although, without some legislative basis for this, it may only pay lip service to the issues of course. However, for those involved in the industry, it could be a route to the promotion of agritech and for lobbying around the need to achieve greater supply resilience for the UK – something that all of the parties seem to have neglected.
The Lib-Dems may go some way to talking about this, in a roundabout way, with a commitment to minimum standards in supply chains to maintain fairness for producers, with an arbitration service being made available. However, we wonder if this is a little like bolting the stable door after the horse has gone, and it would be better to provide more control of and support for supply chains and producers in the first place.
The three main parties all make some mention of the need to support and incentivise the sector to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, improve output and productivity, reduce energy consumption and the use of fertilisers. They recognise the need for more climate-friendly food and the role that green energy must play in its production. They could have given specific support to the part that agritech could play in all of that, but they fail to do so. Although, being optimistic, we would say that the hooks in the manifestos in this area are probably sufficient to lobby for agritech schemes to be supported.
Where the Conservatives and Lib-Dems lead the way on financial commitment, Labour are stronger on supporting farmers in environmental management. They would work with farmers around managing flood risk, and are more supportive of green energy infrastructure for rural areas, and working with the sector to deliver that.
Turning to the smaller parties (at least as we perceive them this side of the election – this may change on 4th July!), it is something of a moot point whether their manifestos have been written with government in mind, or more realistically recognise the role they are likely to have in lobbying the governing party (we’ll stick our necks out and say it’s going to be Keir Starmer’s Labour Party!). Either way, they mostly follow the mantras of their particular reasons to exist.
The Green Party unsurprisingly focus on ecological initiatives. They would provide a three-times increase in funding to support the move towards nature-friendly farming, and payments to farmers would be linked to reducing the use of pesticides and other chemicals. They would set up a network to make use of surplus food – which sounds like a good idea, but we aren’t sure how this would work in practice. They also make a commitment to wind power, on and off-shore, underpinning the UK’s electricity demand to the tune of 70% by 2030 – which feels like a bit of a heroic position!
Meanwhile Reform UK take an almost entirely opposite view to the Green Party. They do make a commitment to increase the farming budget, but by a lower figure of £600m compared to the Conservatives and Lib-Dems. They would end climate related subsidies in agriculture – which chimes with their overall climate-change denial stance, but which may not be convincing to farmers who see the effects of climate change every day.
They would provide tax breaks for smaller food producers, and make farm shops zero-rated for business rates. They are also the only party to recognise that fewer young people are choosing agriculture as a career, and would encourage this with subsidised courses at agricultural colleges. It is a shame that they didn’t link this to the attractiveness and potentially high-earning careers that exist in agritech!
As an aside, we haven’t considered the manifestos of the geographically specific parties (Plaid Cymru, SNP, SDLP, DUP Sinn Fein et al), as none of them are relevant to North Yorkshire!
On a slightly wider horizon, only the Lib-Dems say that they will seek to renegotiate arrangements with the EU, as well as addressing what they say were “botched” trade deals with Australia and New Zealand – at least from an agricultural point of view.
Finally – do any of the manifestos explicitly mention agritech?
Well – not that we have found so far!
This may not be too surprising, as, arguably, they all have a lot of ground to cover in a relatively small amount of space. We do take comfort from the fact that most of the manifestos do talk in general terms about food security and greater and more reliable productivity, which is good. They probably provide enough reference for the argument to be made in lobbying that Controlled Environment Agriculture will have a very important part to play in achieving these objectives – and an agritech park will be the most effective and efficient way to do it.
Undoubtedly the latter half of 2024 will be interesting, as we get to see what the new government will do in its important first 100 days, and how it sets its stall out in terms of agriculture and food production for the country. As the cost-of-living crisis shows no sign of abating, with food affordability remaining a key issue for an increasing number of families, we are certain that it will be an issue that has to be addressed, whoever and however the next administration is formed.
