A tractor rally was held in Canterbury earlier this week to protest towards low cost meals imports and to demand higher remedy within the meals manufacturing provide chain.

Over 240 tractors took half within the ‘go gradual’ protest on Sunday March 2, driving round Canterbury for greater than three hours.

The group behind the protest, generally known as Equity for Farmers, say that the Agriculture Act of 2020, sparce import controls and poor commerce offers negotiated by former overseas secretary Liz Truss may very well be combining to result in a British meals disaster.

The most recent motion follows a slow-moving car protest in Dover final month ran by the identical group to protest towards low grocery store costs, in addition to ongoing protests in Wales over the route of farm coverage there, which continued at this time.

Geoffrey Philpott, a cauliflower farmer based mostly in east Kent, mentioned that he needed to make sure that he produced the “highest-quality, most secure, healthiest meals for the UK market”, Farmers Weekly experiences.

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“We ought to be banning substandard imports that aren’t held to the identical excessive requirements as UK manufacturing and might, in lots of circumstances, have chemical substances used on them which might be banned within the UK.

“I’m proud to have a Union flag on all my produce, however why is it overseas produce that’s packed within the UK can have a Union flag on it? The one cause is to deceive the general public into believing it’s the healthiest and most secure meals you should purchase.”

An announcement launched by Defra in response to the motion mentioned: “We firmly again our farmers. British farming is on the coronary heart of British commerce and we put agriculture on the forefront of any offers we negotiate, prioritising new export alternatives, defending UK meals requirements and eradicating market barrier entry.”

Nonetheless, regardless of their claims to assist UK growers, there’s nonetheless widespread anger over the low costs that farmers obtain from retailers, and rising fear over latest adjustments to farming coverage.

Wales welly demo

A mass peaceable protest was held in Cardiff at this time, the place over 5,500 wellies have been positioned exterior the Senedd to make a stand towards latest controversial adjustments to their Sustainable Farming Scheme, In Wales, the BBC experiences.

Organisers referred to as it a ‘highly effective and emotional’ show representing projected job losses from the adjustments. “It’s actually pushed house simply how a lot is at stake,” mentioned NFU Cymru’s Deputy President Abi Reader. “We can not permit our rural communities to fall foul of a coverage that’s misguided at finest and loopy at worst.”

A public session on the Welsh authorities’s controversial Sustainable Farming Scheme, exterior (SFS) is ready to shut on Thursday. Rural Affairs Minister Lesley Griffiths mentioned she doesn’t need to see ‘a single job misplaced’ on account of the plans.