Years of economic hardship have been capped by the recent foot-and-mouth outbreak. The Farm Crisis Network is a Christian response to these problems. John Marsh reports.
The Agricultural Christian Fellowship springs from one of the professional groups of the UCCF. The Arthur Rank Centre is based at the National Agricultural Centre at Stoneleigh and has been a Christian presence there since its inception. Together they have set up the Farm Crisis Network.
This is a network of branches which only exist where there are people to run them. The South West branch is the longest established and biggest. The people involved are Christian farming people. If not farmers themselves, they are in related industries, so they know what they are talking about. Their aim is to provide help for beleaguered farmers. They offer themselves as 'walkers with' and offer help to farming families when things get tough. The help certainly involves a sympathetic ear to talk through a problem, but it also has access to professional helpers who can give advice on technical and financial problems.
Difficulties
One of the biggest difficulties is that people can only be helped if they ask for it and farmers are independent folk who are slow to ask for help.
In the current crisis however the helpers have been more proactive. If you are farmer in a restricted area you are really penned in. You cannot get out to shop. So helpers who ring can not only talk and encourage but can arrange shopping to be brought to the farm gate and other practical measures. It is something to know that you are not forgotten.
And it is not only the farmers themselves who are in trouble. The small haulage firms have come to a standstill. Various agricultural colleges which have farms are shut in, the students are isolated and studies grind to a halt.
The typical farmer?
We all tend to think in terms of stereotypes but just as Christians are all made in the image of God yet each has their own different personality, so farmers represent a wide range of people. But while we remember this we can still try and see an overall picture of the farming crisis at the moment.
Farmers are beleaguered. Farmers are used to bad years. Small family farmers are nothing if not resilient, but this year is the fifth bad year in succession for UK farmers. Those who watch TV or listen to Farming Today on Radio Four at 5.45 am each morning will know this.
The resilience of family farmers is being tested to the full. Not only have they fears for their current and future financial position (the average farm income was £5,200 last year), but the farmer is also concerned about his family. Will he be able to pass the farm on to his son? Will his son want to take on such a millstone? If the farm has been in your family for several generations there is a feeling of guilt lest you are the one that loses the family farm. All this is made worse by the criticisms of farming in the media. Meanwhile the continuing demand of a seven-day week of long hours continues. Farmers can easily feel isolated, depressed, and, indeed, in despair.
Deeper causes
The causes of the current crisis are complex and come from factors beyond the farm gate. The strong pound makes exporting difficult while any subsidy is paid in a weak euro and devalued before it gets to the farmer.
Then there has been a major shift in market power from local retailers to supermarkets. The problem does not concern the farmer alone. The food chain could be considered as fourfold: first, there is the input from merchants with fertiliser, machinery and the like. Then comes the farmer who is the actual producer. Third is the manufacturer and food processor. And finally there are the distributors who include the supermarkets. Three out of these four are mainly very large conglomerates, while the farmer is the only small man in the chain.
For example, one large corporation controls half of the world grain trade. Its annual turnover is almost five times the annual turnover of the whole of British agriculture. In broad terms in the UK, for every £100 of food bought in the shops the farmer will get £15.
According to a press release from Evangelical Alliance, farmers have suffered a 70% drop in income since 1995 and it is estimated that over 40,000 people have left the industry since 1998. And the UK farmer is not alone in having problems. Small farmers world wide face the same pressures.
The economic situation of the British farmer in real terms is now worse than it has been since the depression before World War II.
It is also important to realise that the farmers are not only the food producers, but also the custodians of countryside. If they go to the wall so will the countryside we all cherish.
In all this the foot-and-mouth crisis seems to be the last straw.
What else can be done?
The Archbishop of Canterbury is encouraging churches to have a time of prayer each Sunday during the crisis and to ring the church bells to remind people that this is going on.
Urban readers of this article can remember to pray for all those who are involved in this, and remember also that the Lord is King even when we see the images of livestock who have been cherished and reared with much labour by the farmer, on the funeral pyre.
The national number for the FCN is 07002 326326. This phone is staffed every evening between 7.00 and 10.00 pm. At other times people are asked to leave a message which will responded to as soon as possible.
Further details can be obtained from Patricia Deacon, Farm Crisis Network, 38 de Montfort Street, Leicester LE1 7GP. Telephone 0116 255 1700.
(This report was written with the help of Mr. Howard Petch, Farmers' Crisis Network.)
