Over the wall

A RURAL view

There has been much ado in recent months about the rezoning of fields to allow for building development. Of course, we all have our own opinions about it.

The ‘pro’ side of the argument refers to enabling Jersey people to live in homes they can actually afford, rather than having to leave their native Island because everything is just too expensive here. The opposing side of the argument deplores the disappearance of fields that could otherwise be used to grow local food for local people. Also, of course, it’s nicer for people living nearby to have a rural view from their windows rather than overlooking a building development and then subsequently to have to live with the results of that development: noise, close neighbours, more traffic, and so forth.

It is possible that regular readers of RURAL might side instinctively with the ‘keep fields as fields’ side of the argument and that they would welcome the idea of fields producing locally grown food and grazing space for the much diminished numbers of cows in the Island.

But, as a farmer often said: ‘Where you see a country view, I see my factory floor’. In short, if there are no farmers or food producers in business who can make their factory floor productive and reasonably profitable, there is little point in maintaining a rural landscape, other than perhaps one or two suitably managed parks. Any defence for maintaining ‘fields as fields’ would fall away in that situation. Hence, one important reason of protecting our own farming industry. Farmers say often that they are the ‘custodians of the countryside’ and that is the plain unvarnished truth. That’s exactly what they are.

Writing in this issue of RURAL, the president of the Royal Jersey Agricultural and Horticultural Society, Robert Perchard, states: ‘Farmers are currently facing some of the greatest challenges that they have ever experienced, where Covid, Brexit, the war in Ukraine and now an extreme drought - all issues beyond their control - have come together to dramatically change the profitability of their dairy farm businesses.’

For years – decades, even – Jersey farmers have pleaded for greater state support for their industry. Perhaps the public has become too familiar with these pleas and demonised the farming sector as whingeing money-grabbers; ‘Have you ever seen a poor farmer?’ is a remark oft heard.

The answer to that is easy: Some farmers are indeed lucky to live in attractive family homes, possibly inherited. But ‘asset rich, cash poor’ perfectly sums up their situation; the operating profit of their farms is very low and getting lower. The industry really is indeed on a knife edge, made even more acute by the challenges of this year.

A comparative analysis shows that Jersey taxpayers pay very little to support the rural economy sector - far less than in other jurisdictions. The area payments handed out to Jersey farmers worked out at £25 a vergée in 2021. In the UK as a whole, a comparison figure for the same area of land was £45 and in Northern Ireland it was £60 – more than twice as much as in Jersey.

In terms of revenue paid per person out of general taxation to support the rural economy in other jurisdictions, the figures are equally revealing. In 2021, on average, EU citizens supported their rural economies with £159 per head per year. In Norway, it was £386 per person; in Switzerland the bill came to £552 per head. Nearer to home, in the Isle of Man, the population pays £128 per head, which enables the Island to afford an agricultural support budget of £10.8m a year.

And Jersey? £16.64 a head; its agricultural budget (direct support) was £1.3m. ‘Could do better,’ as school reports say. In 2022 the budget has increased to £2.07m (£20 a head) – but is this enough?

At the time of writing, government is working on details of an emergency aid package in response to the latest hot weather crisis. But to protect farming in the long-term, Jersey – its government and its people – should really consider how much more support is needed to achieve a sustainable farming sector in the Island, with diverse crops and products that can be sold locally so that Islanders need not rely totally on imported food.

A sustainable farming sector can continue to look after the countryside. That is a major dividend for the nonfarming population. But we should always remember: the countryside that we get is the countryside that we are prepared to pay for.