Minette met her husband Alec Walters while she was at Durham and they married in 1978. UKICE: The perception, for those of us that dont know, is that a lot of farmers did vote Leave, partly because they just hated the bureaucracy of the Common Agricultural Policy, and thought it got in their way. Production of salad ingredients like tomatoes and cucumbers are expected to fall to the lowest levels since records began in 1985. Minette Batters (MB): Its a really odd bubble that were living in at the moment. He knew the Department inside out; he knew farming well. Its not perfect by any means. buss type w 30 amp fuse replacement; Books. Michael was very bought into that. This has been a political decision by the EU and, to a certain extent, their line is, Well, we didnt want you to leave, were entitled to make it difficult. So a no deal meant that we would be dealing with the EU the same way as we would be dealing with the rest of the world in the absence of any trade deals. It took two and a half years to write and was rejected by numerous publishing houses until Macmillan Publishers, bought it for 1250. What we have to recognise is none of these things can be done in isolation. He had said, on behalf of the NFU, that it was in farmings best interests to join the Common Market. In competition with works by other best-selling authors, such as Ruth Rendell, Maeve Binchy and Joanna Trollope, Chickenfeed has won two awards as the best novella in the Quick Reads genre. NFU (National Farmers' Union) on LinkedIn: #gbbw2023 # We had other members who were saying, You cannot take a position, or, If you do take a position, it must be vote Remain, or, It must be vote Leave. So, I think everybody no matter what they say now was in total shock at what had happened. I think its essential that we can meet with him, bearing in mind weve still got active engagement with member states trying to resolve these issues. All of these issues need a pragmatic approach from both sides. We are really asking Defra to keep looking at the impact assessments. Some of which, like David Frost, its been impossible to meet. But that F4 group is still trying to work through these thorny areas. I think we all knew what problems were coming, but I think the challenge was, what was going to be done about them? WebAccording to the latest Twitter stat on 2023-02-11, Minette Batters has a total favourites count of 10625 on the Twitter account and Minette Batters has 22.3 Thousand followers bubble tea consumption statistics australia. Would the EU have allowed things to carry on? What is needed?. Minette is published in almost 40 countries and has sold in excess of 25,000,000 copies of her books worldwide. Covid, and the out-of-home sector being offline, is masking the issue at the moment, of what things will look like going forward. That extraordinary feeling. Minette Batters Officials suddenly became very energised, because they had someone who was really digging in on every area of detail. 48-52% was always going to be challenging, divisive, but to have another referendum, we didnt believe would have made any difference at all. Minette Batters What was not to like? I dont think that agriculture and food have been given, effectively, the opportunity to empower a UK workforce. As part of the British project 'Quick Reads', to encourage literacy amongst adults with reading difficulties, Walters wrote a 20,000-word novella called Chickenfeed. The Department for International Trade, of course, is focused on getting trade deals done. I think, by then, there was quite a realisation in the Johnson-led administration that food was important. Bring everybody into the room, have a massive discussion, and then he would leave the room and you were never quite sure as to who had been listened to. I sat back down next to him and I said, What do you think? And he looked at me, slightly surprised, and he said, I think youre very brave. And I remember her saying to me, I had no idea how complicated Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) rules were. We had an extraordinary meeting of our council, which is our sovereign body, made up of two representatives, effectively, from every county across England and Wales. Weve worked on emergency measures and everything else, but thankfully they were never needed. Her novels are often set against real backgrounds and real events to draw her readers into the 'reality' of what she is writing about. Scoops about National Farmers Union . Boris Johnson was operating from a seismic majority, and so they have the power base to do whatever they want. Knowing where the Treasury had been, having made clear over the last 11 years that if there was the chance, they would remove direct support payments to farmers, we also wanted to know what that would look like. To what extent was the Government talking to you, or engaging with you, on its thinking on their common rulebook, which would obviously mean staying aligned to a lot of the agrifood regulations? minette batters Michael didnt know that we were going to say that, nobody in Defra knew that we were going to say it. So that, with as free and frictionless trade as could be achieved, was something that we all believed in then and we all believe in now. Minette Batters (MB): It was interesting, wasnt it, when Theresa May came in? Her father died from kidney failure in 1960. And its still not resolved, which just shows how complex it is. Dont get me wrong, I think the NFU is really optimistic about the future, we really believe we can be leaders in climate-friendly food production. The TCA landed on 24 December, with details to be filled in in some areas, while managing the pandemic. But its a classic case of, youve got to pitch people. Lovely to listen while running through Oxfordshire farms. But what I did see very quickly with Michael was someone who was very prepared to dive down into every area of technical detail and grasp it. Helped by her husband Edwin and son George, Jilly manages 600 acres on the River Exe floodplain, raising native breeds like South Devons and Red Polls. Its sort of backfiring at the moment, and we still, I think, really need to know what the future is going to look like, and where the improvements are going to be. As a net importer from the EU, and it being our most important export market, it was in the economic interest for farmers on both sides that we added as little cost and friction as possible. Environmental Audit Committee on Twitter: "On 19 April our [citation needed]. The latter was published for World Book Day 2006 as part of the 'Quick Reads' initiative. We were put under a lot of pressure at various times to be part of the Peoples Vote, and call for another referendum. Menu. And how is the state going to be able to pay for them to effectively just plant trees? Still, what keeps me awake at night is this desire to raise standards here. UKICE: But this was a government that made very clear that it was willing to contemplate no deal, to get out by 31 October. I think the commitment was to get over 80% of the trade done in the term of this Parliament. Australia can move livestock not only across the country but across seas, thousands and thousands of kilometres, and we have just banned it here. We never even got close to that. My predecessor, Lord Henry Plumb, had taken a position when we entered the Common Market in 1973. UK in a Changing Europe (UKICE): As David Cameron committed to having the 2016 referendum, first in the Bloomberg speech, but then after the success in the 2015 election, what was on farmers minds? But it isnt an opportunity if we lose access to the EU market. There isnt a silver bullet, but ignoring the situation and saying it isnt important is not a way forwards. BiographyThe events that shaped Minettes life and career, Photo galleryA peek inside Minettes personal photo album, Charitable workOrganizations and causes Minette supports, Interview with Anne CattrellMinette talks about her life, Minette Walters 2019. MB: No, its a massively significant issue. UKICE: Did you have any qualms about becoming NFU President in the middle of this process? I guess we needed to be able to get our point of view across, recognising that it didnt necessarily fit that well with the mantra of Brexit is great, because its about cheaper food, cheaper clothes, which had been the mantra. That is still ongoing, and we still dont know what the future of checks is going to look like. UKICE: Are officials more accessible, if you cant get in to talk to Lord Frost? Or did you think it was a clever solution to a seemingly intractable problem? Id be lying if I said I didnt think that. It is no good going to government, just saying, I want. airline pilot retirement age 70; what happened to mark reilly strong island; east carolina dean's list spring 2021; the frequency table shows the distribution of 1,200 students; lessons on stealing for students; You didnt know what your workforce was going to look like, you didnt know what the future policy was going to look like. Or did you, at that stage, think, This is so catastrophic, its just not going to happen? We know that farmers took different views on the referendum, what were people really thinking about in that run-up to the 2016 referendum? We do have to be all things to all men, whether its arable, livestock, dairy, horticulture plus all those cross-cutting issues of environment, land use, tenancy issues. As part of the British project Quick Reads, to encourage literacy amongst adults with reading difficulties, she wrote a 20,000-word novella called Chickenfeed. How did you find dealing with the new team, compared to the May team? UKICE: Rather intriguingly, George Eustice, given his background, put down one of the indicative votes proposing UK accession to EFTA. Five generations of her family have run the farm but, like the new NFU president, she is the first woman to take the reins. It was a formidable coalition. If we go and dilute that massively, and have a flood of much cheaper imports, that is obviously going to undermine our farmers. History will judge what we did harshly if we get it wrong, so we cannot afford to miss a beat. For me, the issue was, How do we pivot this back to the policies that are needed for sustainable food production?. If were going to continue with a policy that is about raising standards in this country, and not asking the same for other countries, thats going to have big impact on our farmers and on our food system. I think there was an element of relief that it wasnt necessary to re-inform someone who came in totally new. Were they particularly worried about that? If were going to have checks in the Irish Sea to avoid a border, where do you do the checks? MB: I think, genuinely, probably nobody wanted it to play out how its played out, which has been long and protracted and divisive. Within six months of that new government I was conscious that wed led the standards campaign. The story contains many of the same themes that occur in her earlier books, and, along with its sequel, The Turn of Midnight, published in 2018, draws readers into the frightening reality of the Black Death. Suddenly, the environment was rising up the agenda and everybody wanted a slice of it, and he was running the show. Do you think it signalled a significant change of direction? You have to go there with what I used to describe to Michael a magpie moment, the glittery jewel that makes government think, Oh yes, that looks exciting. Checking everything against the principles was pretty key, because if you are leading an organisation, which I wasnt then, Meurig Raymond was, it is really critical to have that solid evidence based foundation from which to operate, and from which to build our policy and lobbying position from. The EU, of course, are taking that to say, Products are coming into the UK so easily, not getting checked, this is going to be your policy for the rest of the world. I remember reading the Defra press release the night before that interview, and it was a heart-stopping moment for me. Minette Batters The Mail on Sunday agreed to help promote the NFUs standards petition. I think, on an official level on both sides, they could see the enormous challenge, but the decision that that had to be resolved was purely political. We need to work collaboratively to incentivise a UK workforce. WebOn 19 April our Environmental Change & #FoodSecurity inquiry heard from @HenryDimbleby; @Minette_Batters, @NFUtweets; Peter Dawson, @dairyuk; @suepritch, @FFC_Commission; and Chris Brown, @asda. Andrea Leadsom, a leading light of the Leave campaign, moves over to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), to replace Liz Truss, and the establishment of the Department for International Trade (DIT), to show that new trade deals were going to be a big thing for the new government. And this, I think, still remains a very complex political issue. So, from our point of view, it was important to have bilaterals with our opposite numbers and allow them to lobby their governments on what was needed. I have very good engagement with the Department for International Trade at all levels, and with Defra at all levels. The Australian head negotiator heads up the Trans-Pacific negotiations as well. But he was reshuffled when Boris Johnson came in. By India Bourke You dont mention food production, you dont mention agriculture, all youre mentioning is the environment. It has got friction, where none existed before. Was the move to George Eustice an easy transition? I still look back on it as, fundamentally, my job is about speaking truth to power and getting what is needed for, not only the members, but consumers. They have very different standards to us; they have big feedlot systems, they farm at serious scale. Minette met her husband Alec Walters while she was at Durham and they married in 1978. So, we supported Chequers, as, interestingly, did Michael Gove. minette batters @Minette_Batters Wiltshire farmer: beef, sheep and arable. Ultimately, when we look at the delinking process, you are going to see 50% of direct support that will be capped in four years. I asked what he thought as the Votes were just starting to come in then, and I think a lot of people were in the same position as me. She supplemented her salary by writing romantic novelettes, short stories, and serials in her DB6031P06 LOCAL farmer Minette Batters gives us an insight into daily life on her farm near Downton with We went to Wageningen University, a world leading Dutch University with experience in running agricultural trade models. The catastrophic part came from the fact that, with more than 70% of our exports going into the EU, we would face their very high tariff wall which, for agricultural products like beef and lamb and dairy, was an impossible economic ladder to climb and at the same time, as a nation we import more than 30% of the food we consume from the EU. We also knew that campaigning on either side, for a membership organisation, would be really counter-productive. Dont forget, Michael Gove did not hold back in this arena, he is well documented and publicised. minette batters She runs the farm largely on her own, and her husband works in another industry. under option with Company Pictures. In all these challenges, we knew that any border would have to be in the Irish Sea. MB: What wed been talking about, accepting that we were no longer going to be a part of the Single Market, was how free and frictionless trade was needed on both sides. If we set the legislation bar above domestically , for international trade, that is just going to add more cost and price ourselves out of the market. Or did you think it was just so unthinkable and such a bad thing, that you werent even prepared to talk about it with government? Within four months, it had won the Crime Writers' Association John Creasey award for best first novel[3] and had been snapped up by 11 foreign publishers. What were your early engagements with the new May administration like? You could say he brought a massive breath of oxygen into the department. National Farmers Union is reportedly in talks to read more company news. WebA round-up of all the video updates from NFU President Minette Batters on how we're representing British f More More Play all Shuffle 1 5:25 Putting the lamb market on We had implemented laws that were based on food values, and yet we werent prepared to look at that in other parts of the world. Weve legislated to achieve net zero, but there is so much that can be achieved through new policy thinking as to what that looks like, and ultimately, our opportunity to influence European thinking. They have two sons: Roland, who is married to Charlotte, and Philip, who is married to As her father was a serving army officer, the first 10 years of Walters's life were spent moving between army bases in the north and south of England. Minette Batters (MB): Well, George has been in Defra a long time. Minette Batters, NFU President NFUonline She turned freelance in 1977 but continued to write for magazines to cover her bills. dune fremen language translator. Trying to make sure that we had all areas of our membership covered was absolutely critical. So, for us to have stayed on the fence without a position would have, I think, looked quite extraordinary. We must make sure that even the poorest in our society have access to high quality British food, which they currently do. That then was the reason for me saying at the Oxford Farming Conference in 2019, Actually, do you know what? But does the farming industry feel that its adapting okay, or are there surprising new challenges, unanticipated challenges, emerging? minette batters familymilwaukee battery lights flashing back and forth minette batters family. UKICE: Weve heard about asparagus rotting in the fields, strawberries unpicked, daffodils unpicked. Minette Batters, who is the president of the National Farmers Union (NFU) of England and Wales and has been called the most powerful farmer in the UK, was But it was always going to need a bespoke model. NFU President Minette Batters tells us why it's so important to She said: "Back in 2009, my friend Minette Batters and I saw that positive messages about Red Tractor-assured British beef were not getting through to the consumer. Those three things together, for a long-term business- I would say, if you werent worried then, you werent actively engaged. Where the UK/ GB exporters face the full battery of checks going into the EU, and EU exporters are waved through at the UK border. How worried were you that the Government was very keen on a deal with the US? It was then, that we established our new EU Exit and International Trade Directorate. I think they were clearly split though. To undermine our farmers, when you want them to have regulation that costs a lot of money, and undermine them with cheap products coming in that dont even meet the first rung of the ladder, was going to do one thing, and that was going to put our farmers out of business. I have to say, at this moment in time, it is hard to see how we retain our levels of self-sufficiency, and keep our farmers with the same price structure, effectively, that they have at the moment. Im not so sure. Above all else, I want to see honesty to farmers about the road that they are on from our political leaders. South West farmers say 'beef doesn't have to cost the earth And, as someone quite well known to you, were you relieved that it was someone who had a track record on farming? We convened our council, our sovereign body, again, at a special meeting in London. What we feel is that the dialogue must bring a pragmatic solution at some stage. Minette Batters So, very quickly, this debate became about chlorinated chicken. We ended up facing three no deals, essentially, in the end, all of which were avoided. I think it is always challenging when you work with a majority government. WebChanging The Way The World Views Construction. I dont think DIT and Defra are aligned in their thinking. We focused all our lobbying on, I guess, the outcomes that we wanted to see achieved, not our means of getting there by some of the existing avenues; the Single Market, customs union, EFTA. So, in June 2020 we had over a million people in two weeks saying, Weve got to have a Trade and Agriculture Commission, MPs have got to be able to have their say. NFU President Minette Batters UK egg production has fallen to its lowest level in nine years. There are a lot of things that need to be done. So, when I went and had my second meeting with Theresa May, it was to discuss her Chequers proposal. MB: Well, it was well known, my constant mantra on no deal being catastrophic for farmers. Its only when commodity prices are impacted, and the future support mechanism is changed- if that isnt right, that is when things will start to erupt, and that is what weve got to try and avoid. How concerned were you about that part, as well as the trade side? Find ratings and reviews for the newest movie and TV shows. We just focused on, What we need is free and frictionless trade, which I think, for some, got quite annoying. I think the EU member states were always going to be deeply suspicious of us lowering food standards. MB: No more than the rest of Europe did. Because at the end of the day, the NFU is going to be pivotal in this major re-set moment. But given the issues at hand went well beyond the economics argument, into issues such as immigration and sovereignty, it was also decided that the NFU would not campaign for Remain, nor would we advise our members how to vote. Weve obviously got a lot of trucks coming over and a lot of trucks going back empty. So, he did, in the early days, in 2019, sign up to the importance of the Trade and Agriculture Commission, writing in ink that he agreed with the concept and would look to establish such a body.
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