Q&A: New CLA president sets out her ambitions for farming
© CLA The new president of the Country Land and Business Association (CLA), Victoria Vyvyan, has vowed to champion the next generation, celebrate the regions and take its Rural Powerhouse campaign to the next level during her two-year tenure.
Cornish farmer Mrs Vyvyan, who succeeded Cotswolds farmer Mark Tufnell as the 56th president in the association’s 116-year history, has outlined the priorities that will be at the heart of her presidency.
These include:
- Ensuring political parties develop robust and ambitious policies to grow the rural economy
- Supporting the next generation of rural businesses to succeed and thrive
- Ensuring the voices of rural communities across different regions are heard.
See also: Flawed planning system stifling rural communities, says CLA
Mrs Vyvyan’s priorities tie in with the CLA’s Rural Powerhouse campaign, which highlights how the rural economy is 19% less productive than the national average.
Closing this productivity gap could add £43bn to gross domestic product (GDP).
Her home is Trelowarren, on the Lizard peninsula in Cornwall, a diversified rural family business with a strong ecological focus.
The estate includes some tenanted and some in-hand agricultural land, a lowland heath restoration project, woodland managed in-hand for quality timber and for bio-mass production, a tourism business, a new restaurant and off-site building projects.
“I’m very proud to be the first president of the CLA to come from Cornwall,” Mrs Vyvyan told Farmers Weekly.
“I’m proud that I’m going to be able to represent the interests of the West Country and upland farmers, and all of the farming interests in the regions that find themselves unheard in the current government.”
General election
Over the next 12 months, Mrs Vyvyan said all of the CLA’s priorities must be focused on the general election.
“We need to take to all of the parties messages about how to develop the rural economy, and to bring to them the recommendations we had in our Rural Powerhouse campaign.”
Mrs Vyvyan said under her leadership, the CLA would continue to take the message to government that the rural economy has been ignored and left behind, adding: “There is so much more that could be done to help people living in rural areas.”
She also spoke of her personal ambition to work more with developing young rural companies and businesses.
Asked whether the CLA stands for food production or nature, Mrs Vyvyan said: “I am fundamentally opposed to being edged into this binary discussion.
“We have to find space for food and the environment, and we have to find space for people. It’s up to us to do that.”
Meanwhile, Gavin Lane has been appointed CLA deputy president, while Joe Evans becomes vice-president.
Q&A: Victoria Vyvyan on food, farming and rural issues
Q: What are the benefits of being a CLA member?
A: There are two significant benefits: the first is our lobbying at Westminster. No member of parliament has a reason to listen to our voice, but if we gather those voices together and we represent them with the CLA, we can be heard.
The second is that members have access to a wide range of services that affect their everyday lives, from legal and tax, through to running a business and, of course, agricultural transition.
Do you think the future of the food-producing British farm is over?
A: Absolutely not. Speaking from a livestock background, if we produce the finest and most environmentally conscious beef, we should be producing more, not less.
If ours is better than the others, in environmental terms, we should be ramping up our production, not reducing it.
Q: Jeremy Clarkson has said he cannot justify the costs of farming and may have to sell up. If he cannot make a living out of farming, who can?
A: I very much enjoyed the series (Clarkson’s Farm). I feel that his capital outlays were rather on the heavy side for a farm of its type, but I am pretty sure he doesn’t have to sell his farm.
But it’s not like this is not exactly what was predicted. As we left the EU and the Common Agricultural Policy, hiatus was inevitable.
I felt then, and still feel, that it is very hard to justify area-based payments. I think that Environmental Land Management (ELM), where we have a contract with government to do the things that people really need, is a good model. It’s not a begging bowl, it’s a deal.
Q: Is it time to scrap or modify Defra’s ELM scheme and add at least an element of direct support?
A: No. I think you are making yourself a hostage to fortune by having something that the red tops can use against you.
No other industry gets paid just for existing. There are lots of industries that are closer to public health, but don’t get it (support payments).
I think we do need support, but it needs to be rational and the way to do that is to contribute to public goods.
Q: Does the CLA support the culling of badgers as part of government plans to eradicate bovine TB?
A: It’s a highly effective project. I could not be more behind badger culling, until we have a more reasonable, economically viable solution.
It is a tragedy what is happening in TB areas. My sister’s herd tested positive. It took her a while to get free.
Stock builds up on the farm, it puts it all under huge pressure, and then you are just about to release everything because you have had another clear test, and then you get another positive and are locked down again.
It’s no way to run a business.
Q: Does the CLA support the EU proposal to relicense glyphosate for a further 10 years?
A: Glyphosate is a regenerative farming enabler, so I don’t think we can do without it.
However, I think the question about a 10-year relicensing of glyphosate is a much more nuanced argument.
At the moment, I think yes because the net gain is more important.
Obviously, it needs very close control, which it has.
If, by using glyphosate, I can farm fields without any intervention from pesticides, herbicides and heavy nitrogen input, have I got a net gain in environmental terms?
If it helps you get the green cover back on the ground quicker, again that’s a plus.