voice-over: this is bbc news. we'll have the headlines and all the main news stories for you at the top of the hour, straight after this programme. welcome to hardtalk, i'm stephen sackur. today, i'm in wiltshire, southern england, farming country, where the serene rural views belie deepening economic anxiety. �*cos right now, agriculture is under enormous pressure. spiralling costs, shortages

of labour and a demand that farmers produce more at less cost to the environment. my guest today is minette batters. she farms right here, she's also president of the national farmers' union. as a society, are we asking our farmers for the impossible? minette batters, welcome to hardtalk. thank you for having me. it's a great pleasure to be on yourfarm. and the sun is shining and, in some ways, you would think the sun would be shining on farmers. food prices are spiralling higher. you would think that would be good news forfarmers. is it? it's quite extraordinary.

i don't think, in my lifetime, i have ever faced into anything like the cost inflation that we are facing with our inputs now. so, we're seeing triple digit inflation on fertiliser, we've seen diesel costs up by 57%, feed costs up by nearly 60%. these are huge price pressures. you have chosen to alight upon the price pressures, i chose to start about talking about the prices you are receiving because we know that consumers are struggling to meet the prices of the basic food stuffs that they buy at the supermarket which makes me think surely, the farmers, at least, are getting the bonus greater income? that isn't how it works, so i'm trying to just describe the huge inflation that we are feeling and then, of course you have to pass that on. so, if your costs are up massively on where they in 2019, so the price per therm of gas in the normal time

effectively 50p a therm. we are seeing, still, the price of gas having come down, we are still seeing it over 150% higher. so, with all of these costs with production, whether that be feed costs, energy costs, fuel costs, someone has got to pay for that. now, there is a limit to what consumers can afford to pay and then you have the whole supply chain — you've got the retailer, the packer, so it's about getting a fair return, effectively, for farmers and growers to keep them producing the food that we want. the economist magazine just a couple of months ago looked to the income of cereal farmers across the country and they reckoned that their income had risen more than 68% in the last year. now, we sometimes get a little cynical about farmers. they plead poverty and yet, you dig away at their actual accounts and they're doing rather well. isn't that the case for at least some farmers even now? you've got a story of two halves. so, for arable farmers, yes,

they probably had a once—in—30—year harvest. don't forget the cost of inputs. fertiliser, effectively, they would have the previous year been paying £200 a ton and paying 1,000 pounds per ton for nitrogen fertiliser. so so they would have been paying huge input costs. then, you have your poultry farmers, livestock and dairy farmers who have to pay a much higher price for that feed because the global commodity prices, as you say, has skyrocketed, all driven by russia invading ukraine. yeah. when it comes to the biggest obstacles to farmers today — you've talked about the shocks of covid, of the ukraine war, the various different disruptions and supply chain problems — isn't the truth that the biggest problem of all with the vote to leave the european union, and we reckon that roughly half of farmers actually did vote for brexit. so, in a sense, farmers looking at their problems today, many of them

only have themselves to blame? brexit — i don't think farmers were any different to anybody else. you know, families across the country were divided, farmers were divided. i actually felt that we should remain and i took a public position on it. many didn't, of course, so they were divided on whether they wanted to remain in the eu or leave. ultimately, we chose to leave and i think that i personally am enormously grateful that we are in a democratic society, and we voted to leave and we have left. did the government lie to farmers about what the impact of brexit would be? well, there was one sheet of ali, wasn't there? and there were three straplines on that sheet of ali — "the easiest trade deal in history. "more money because we won't be investing it in europe. "and a bonfire regulation" — well, actually none of that has come true. when it comes to the practical impact of brexit on farms

like yours, labour is a huge need for agricultural producers. can your members, the farmers across the united kingdom, can they get the seasonal workers they need, that they used to get very easily from the eu? when we were in europe, we were the preferred country for seasonal workers to come to. we were ahead of germany and everybody else. people wanted to come here. that's all gone now, so we are bringing people in from very, very challenging parts of the world. there's a lot of cost attached to coming here and it is very, very different landscape for growers now and seasonal workers. we have had to battle really hard with the home office. we started with a figure, five years ago, of 10,000. that's now 45,000. it still has to be agreed on an annual basis. we're saying we've got to have a five—year rolling programme. the dexterity of this human hand is absolutely essential. we haven't got a robot yet that can pick anywhere near the pace of a human hand or cut

or do anything else. last year, it was claimed by the nfu that tens of millions of pounds of crops were left on the ground, were wasted because there was not the workforce to harvest them. you presumably tell government ministers that, have they responded? i tell them that regularly. look, we've gone from 10,000 to 115,000 with a potential uplift... you mean the visas offered to seasonal workers coming specifically to do farm work? absolutely. but we don't simply have enough people who are unemployed here to do the jobs. so, this is holding our whole economy back. it's huge for agriculture, but for the whole supply chain as well. and when you hear, as i hear, of farmworkers from countries like the philippines, a whole bunch of other countries, who come here and are held in a sort of debt bondage because those who bring them here,

demand they paid for the visas, for the transportation and given the sums they are earning on the farms, they remain in debt for months, if not years. what responsibility do you and your members take for these people who come here and live in such debt? for the seasonal workers scheme, they, last year and the previous year, the payment rate was set above our own national living wage, you have people coming here that were being paid more than the top of our national living wage. this year, it is an equilibrium across both. so, it's really important — we are a highly regulated sector — it's really important people are well paid, their living, their accommodation is on—site, it's absolutely vital that is first—class and that everybody is well looked after. as i say, we didn't get the badge in the eu of being the most preferred country for no reason at all. people wanted to come here.

in terms of another eu issue, and that is trade deals, which the british government insisted would offer — brexit would offer amazing opportunities to sign new, better trade deals with countries around the world — they've alighted upon australia, new zealand as early examples. you have suggested that the deals actually done represent, frankly, a betrayal of british farmers. why do you say that? i've worked with three different prime ministers in the last 12 months and they've all had very different priorities. i feel it was an absolute catastrophe, if i'm honest, to give australia and new zealand total liberalised deals. in 15 years, there will be no checks and balances. if anything goes wrong, there will be nothing we can do about it. now, michael gove, george eustace and many others had maintained these sensitive sectors and it was decided by liz truss at the time that we would fully

liberalise — australia was liberalised and we would too. there'll be nothing we can do if things go wrong here. crosstalk. what a negative view of what mark spencer, the farming minister, described as a massive opportunity forfarmers to enjoy a new dawn, allowing them to break into markets in asia. he said, "with inbuilt safeguards to make sure farmers "are still protected". was he simply not telling the truth? so, if he's talking recently, he's talking about the trans—pacific deal, which is the cpttp deal. now, this is what i mean about different prime ministers. you had borisjohnson, you had liz truss. now, the cpttp, liz truss wanted to start negotiations at 100,000 tons on beef. actually, what they have done with the trans—pacific deal is negotiate a deal of 13,000 tons on beef. you can see that is a very, very different approach. i'm really pleased the prime minister has listened, rishi sunak has listened.

you've got a different approach to trade but don't forget the damage done previously, and two of the most formidable countries as far as agriculture goes in the cptpp are australia and new zealand. what has happened is those countries want access to our market for agricultural goods. we want access on services, so we've ended up sacrificing agriculture for services. there's a different approach now, a different mandate, and i think kemi badenoch and rishi sunak, they get it, but a lot of damage has been done. i'm thinking you have had five years in this job. you're the first woman president of the national farmers' union. you have a powerful voice. and yet, i wonder what you have achieved. if one looks at the way agriculture and farming issues have an extraordinarily prominent position in countries not so very far from here, like france, like the netherlands, where a farmers' movement political party has just scored an outstanding victory in local elections.

farming and farmers in this country simply don't carry that kind of clout. you're their union boss. so, where are you going wrong? i think you're wrong. we led a campaign that bought all chefs, all farming organisations, all environmental ngos and we got a million people in under a month signing a petition, saying that our food standards here mattered on animal welfare and environmental protection and they didn't want to see them sacrificed in trade deals. so, people in this country do care. i think politically, they tend to think farming doesn't matter, it's a backwater. why? i think a long time in the eu, we took food for granted. we had trade flows that went backwards and forwards. you can buy food, whatever you want whenever you want, 21w, so i think we have taken our food for granted. and isn't it partly because you have ceded so much power in terms of the food supply

chain to the retailers and the processors? if you look at the price of a loaf of bread, for example, as i understand it, less than 1% of the value of that bread actually goes to the farmer who grows the wheat. hmm—mm. that is not true in some other countries, and farmers in a sense have allowed that to happen? you are right. whether it's something to do with being on an island nation, i don't know, but we haven't collaborated on the same way as other countries have done. so, we have let the major retailers effectively take control. this is a unique marketplace here in the uk and it is a challenging one. and, you know, we have got the most affordable food in europe per income spend, the third most affordable in the world. so, it's been a great success story for consumers but there are tipping points, though, and that is what you have seen cracking this year and last with supply and global challenges on water

security, energy security. we have a great climate here, as you can see. we grow grass. we should be producing much more of what we are good at here. to continue with the impact, the fallout from brexit — one more — that is, as the uk has left the european union, we have also left the common agricultural policy and the government has used that opportunity to shift the way it supports agriculture in england away from giving farmers basic payments for every hectare of land they own and farm and saying, no, we will give you specific payments for particular land management practices, environmental management practices. is that good for farmers? it can be. it's not there yet, but it can be. for me, actually, what is missing is the scientific rigour that needs to underpin public moneys for public good. so, we committed to farming achieving net zero by 20110,

beating the government target by ten years, with the right policies and the right incentives in place. and at the very beginning of thisjourney — don't forget, we have legislated to achieve net zero, so it is going to be happening anyway — but the exciting thing for agriculture is we are an emitter but we can do something about it. so, we should be measuring our baseline first. we have got some of the best science institutions in the world here — rothamsted, niab, the wakehurst project. we should be measuring the baseline of where we are on soil health, carbon sequestration, so what is not working, we can make better. what is working we can reward. that is not happening. right. it is a very complicated system, it seems. i mean, the government has unveiled a plan for england which involves over 200 different practices that they will finance on farms, all connected, they say, to better environmental management, but your own director of trade and business strategy nick von westenholz says farmers are going to receive significantly less support.

that, of course, will impact their incomes. so, as we make this transition to, say, farming is less about — focused on food production — and more focused on being good custodians of the soil, the water sources, and the environment. are farmers actually going to get poorer? without doubt. coming out of the cap, losing direct support, and the current scheme, which is predicated on what we called the income foregone model. so that you have to — you do stuff, effectively, but profit is not built into it. 0ur conversation began with you telling me, yes, we are already in a food supply crisis, and now you are telling me that you are transitioning to a new model of supports and payments from the government which is going to make it much more difficult for you to focus on food production, and actually massively reduce your income. i mean, how do those two things sit together?

well, i don't think food has been recognised as a public good. i would say that producing food is a public good, and indeed, if you talk to economists, they will say, "well, food security is a public good, but food production isn't." we have got to make sure we have the same approach for delivering for the environment as we have for delivering our food, and if we have a market failure situation, you know, the direct support payment was one way for farmers — if the market fell off a cliff, don't forget the offices outside — that they would be able to keep feeding their livestock and keep feeding theirfamilies, so there are very, very challenging parts of our country that are being very reliant on direct support. do you think farmers are instinctively inclined to be good custodians of the environment? i ask that partly because i see that the nfu is still supporting the use of neonicotinoids, chemicals, something which across europe has been banned, but you at the nfu here in the united kingdom say you still support it, despite the overwhelming

evidence that it is environmentally extremely harmful. why do you do that? well, let's start with soils first. every farmer that i represent will say there is no more better investment they can make than into their soils, and, indeed, a recent survey we did — 75% of them wanted to be measuring the baseline of where we are at now, which is fantastic. what — you mean 25%, a quarter of all farmers, could not care less about the quality of their soil? no. that's not the case at all. that's the implication of what you just said. well, if you had — ten years ago, if you had said, "do you want to know how much carbon is in your soil?" very few would have actually understood. carbon back then was nothing. what i am saying now is the value of carbon and the importance of sequestering more carbon is really resonating, and they want to know much more. the point you make on the neonicotinoids — we would lead the world in sustainable production of sugar beet, and the neonicotinoids is being used now in non—flowering crops.

we are the only one that is working with a rothamsted model to signal when you would choose to do that. but it's a particular test case. it is a chemical which decimates bee populations, vital to bee pollination. to non—flowering crops. yes, but the point is, still, these chemicals enter the water system. they are very difficult to break down. in europe, they have absolutely decided the right thing to do is to ban them. i am just interested that the farmers' union, while saying it is utterly committed to getting to net zero and being a sustainable, responsible custodian of the environment, still supports using this chemical. it's the wrong message, isn't it? you are not actually right about europe. france has not used the modelling process on the neonicotinoids for sugar beet. they have not modelled and they have been able to get derogations to use it, as have other countries. for us, we havejust got

the precision breeding bill through, which will be a game changer, but are we really going to say with the most sustainable beet production in the world that we're not going to do it here, we are just going to export our conscience and our production, or are we going to try and do it ever better? we are the ones that are up for trying to do it ever better. the precision breeding bill will be a game changer. that will transform potentially how we deal with challenges of drought, of climate change, but we have got to build bridges to get there. it is not a case of not wanting to cause — you know, we want to limit our food production footprint and step back and a step back, so, we tread ever lighter whatever sector you are. eating food does cause damage to our environment, but are we just going to say, "we are wealthy. we will get it from somewhere else. we will put pressure on other sides of the world," or will we say, "we will lead the charts in climate—smart agriculture and we will start it here and get the rest of the world doing that." that will deliver for climate change and is what the world needs.

what that answer tells me is that to be a farmer today, with all of the different pressures, whether they be price pressures, environmental, sustainability — it is an extraordinarily pressurised and difficultjob. a personal question — when you consider your own life and those of your fellow farmers, that this is a profession you think you want your children to go into? because there is a lot of evidence that many young people are leaving farming and the demographics of farming are dangerously skewed to the older people in the business. if i speak to the universities and colleges out there, they are absolutely rammed with young people wanting to come in and have a career infarming. so, i think it is changing. for me, personally, it'sjust something that is in my dna and biogenetic. there is no betterfeeling than when we are calving, lambing, seeing new life come into the world.

i can think of no better job in the world. and 28% of farmers according to your own nfu survey last year — 28% of them looking actively at the possibility of giving up? 7,000 businesses were lost in 2019 to 2022. they either consolidated or they got out of the industry. i mean, there is no denying that it is — you don't shut the office door. i never come back and think, "i am going to have two days and stay indoors." you are on call 24/7 if you are a livestock farmer, and that is just how it is. but i genuinely think that, actually, the road that we are on now, the journey to carbon neutral food production, the ability to produce so many more of our fibres, fuel, food in a way that is truly sustainable, i think it is becoming a very, very exciting time and the young people — when i speak to the young people, they do not have the baggage

of our generation. theyjust see this as a really exciting time. and just a final thought, thinking ahead — i know you have kids. they may or may not decide to be full—time farmers, but if they do, 25 years from now, farms like this, traditional farms, they may be in a sense more environmental conservation centres than they are food production centres. it could be that thanks to ai, thanks to robotics, hydroponic farming techniques, that food production may be incredibly intensive, incredibly industrialised, and not focused on places like this. would that be a good thing or a bad thing? you have got to remember that 60% of the country you could not be doing anything else other than growing grass and grazing livestock. there is a vast proportion of great britain that is not going to be growing broccoli or milling wheat or malting barley. it is going to be growing grass and something has got to be eating that grass, so we can't have lawnmowers.

you have got to have the tearing action that will create the biodiversity by our grazing herds and flocks, and that is what creates the dynamics of our iconic countryside. so, i am really hopeful that if politicians can just see the jewel in the front of them that there is a great future, but if we are sacrificed in trade deals, if we are undermined in the marketplace, it is going to cause devastation out there but it is myjob to ensure that does not happen. minette batters, it has been a pleasure being on yourfarm, and thank you for being on hardtalk. thanks for having me. hello there. the weather for the easter weekend is looking pretty

decent for many of us. a lot of places will stay dry and there'll be plenty of sunshine around, too. the temperatures creeping up, particularly easter sunday looks to be a warm one across southern areas. however, it's all changed by the time we head into the bank holiday, easter monday. it turns more unsettled thanks to this area of low pressure. but high pressure dominates the scene, as you can see, for good friday. it starts off chilly, though, with some frost around, early mist and fog, which will clear quite quickly. as the temperatures rise into the afternoon, could see some fairweather cloud bubbling up — that could spark off the odd shower across southeast england. a bit of cloud just rolling in off the north sea for northeast england, eastern scotland, and along north sea coasts, it'll be quite chilly with an onshore breeze. otherwise, elsewhere after that chilly starts, it's the low to mid—teens for most of us. and then, through friday night into the early part of saturday, temperatures again tumble across central, southern and western areas where skies are clearest. it's particularly cold there, i think, for west midlands, central wales, but eastern scotland, eastern england, more cloud here, so not quite as cold as will be further west. into saturday, then, very little change, high pressure

dominates the scene. this weather front getting a little bit closer to northern ireland, but it stays away, i think, throughout the day. so, plenty of sunshine once again through the morning, into the afternoon, a bit of cloud bubbling up — that could just produce the odd shower here and there. but most places will stay dry and those temperatures ranging from around 11—15 degrees again. quite chilly, though, across north east scotland, with the onshore breeze. easter sunday looks to be a little bit warmer. plenty of sunshine through central and southern areas, a bit more clouds to the east, and then to the west, this weather front starts to bring more of a breeze. outbreaks of rain to northern ireland, the far west of scotland, later in the day. but for the rest of the country, that sunshine around southerly winds, it could be quite warm — up to around 17 degrees in the mildest spots. then it's all change for bank holiday monday. this weather front spreads across the country with some fairly gusty winds, as it does clear through during the second part of the day, it brightens up sunshine and blustery showers, most of the showers in the north and the west, some of them will be fairly heavy.

temperatures coming down a touch, particularly in the north and the west, highs of 10 to around 13 or 1a degrees for most. and then, the upcoming new week looks unsettled, low pressure always nearby. it'll stay quite showery. a bit of sunshine around, too, but it will be noticeably cooler.

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