Charles Abel • Coronavirus Crisis
Covid19
response
THANK YOU NHS Smart ways to show support for NHS, care staff and frontline workers included rainbow stacks of silage bales, messages ploughed and mown into fields, and this message sprayed onto a farmer’s airfield near York by a Trimble-controlled Horsch sprayer.
Coronavirus dealt a hammer blow to human health and businesses alike. Charles Abel captures just some of the key moments as farming fought to respond to the new world order. See also p18
HELP AT HAND Anxiety, isolation, financial worries – the Farming Help partnership created by the Addington Fund, Farming Community Network, R.A.B.I, RSABI and Forage Aid, supported by The Prince’s Countryside Fund, was here to help. Its helpline (03000 111 999), open 7am-11pm every day, has been fielding calls ranging from practical support to help applying for Coronavirus loan scheme and delayed VAT. NFU Mutual Charitable Trust gave £739,000 to aid charities.
AG BILL PROGRESSED Intense lobbying failed to win crucial amendments in the new Agriculture Bill’s Commons reading – the first legislation to be digitally progressed by UK Parliament. It gives no protection for UK farmers against imports produced to lower standards of animal welfare, plant health and environmental protection. Intnl Trade Secretary Liz Truss’s Trade & Agriculture Commission offers hope. But no-deal EU-exit could mean high WTO tariff exports to EU.
08 • The Farmers Club Harvest 2020
DIVERSIFICATION SHOCK Lockdown dealt farm diversifications a heavy hit, a Knight Frank survey showing 80% of rural businesses expected a profit slump. Some responded by giving locally produced foods to NHS and key worker teams, including here in Northern Ireland, where Glenarm Castle partnered with local food producers to donate homegrown fruit and vegetables, Shorthorn beef, organic smoked salmon, eggs and bread – the best of British fresh food.
#FEEDTHENATION Months of negligible demand from caterers and restaurants hit supply chains, although beef and lamb prices subsequently rose. Farmers and farming organisations pulled out all the stops to keep the nation fed, including the Royal Agricultural University producing over 2000 meals for the Feeding the 5,000 project run by The Long Table in Gloucestershire.
