The heroines of farming deserve more recognition

Published on Monday 23 April 2007 00:55

THE photograph in last Friday's edition of The Scotsman of the dozen ladies who now sit in the cabinet of the coalition government in Finland set me thinking of the role of the fairer sex in farming and rural affairs.

It is mostly a good news story, but let's dispose of the bad part first.

The Rt Hon Margaret Beckett will surely go down as one of the least effective ministers - and that says a lot - to oversee rural affairs. Fortunately, her remit in the Scottish context was relatively minor, but some of her decisions and inactions still have consequences north of the Border.

Beckett's handling of the 2003 reforms of the Common Agricultural Policy has proved disastrous for farmers in England. She chose the most complicated system imaginable. Thankfully, Scotland opted for a more pragmatic approach, which is working reasonably well.

The Rural Payments Agency was completely out of its depth in assessing the single farm payment due to every farming business in England, resulting in enormous cash flow problems and to many cases of stress, and worse. The business in which my son-in-law is a partner in Essex did not receive its 40,000 final payment for last year until October; it should have been paid in March or April. And he was lucky - some are still awaiting the balance of the 2006 payment.

Beckett, to the amazement of many of her colleagues, has moved on to become Foreign Secretary, but her rural affairs legacy endures. Only last week the Department for the Environment and Rural Affairs announced that it was cutting, and in some cases cancelling, funding for a wide range of research programmes into animal health, welfare and behaviour. Some of those projects would have been conducted in Scotland by the Scottish Agricultural College and the Moredun Research Institute in Edinburgh.

But there was more to come: no longer will the government provide open-ended funding for compensation in the event of a major animal disease outbreak such as foot-and-mouth or bovine tuberculosis. Instead, Whitehall is keen to enter into some vague form of "partnership" with the industry.

That, quite simply, is a coded message to the effect that a levy will be imposed on farmers to meet future costs. I accept that there were some mighty cheques paid out to farmers in the wake of the 2001 foot-and-mouth crisis, but it was not the fault of the stewards of the countryside that the awful plague arrived here. Biosecurity is supposed to have been tightened at points of entry into the UK, but there are few obvious indications of that. The Blight of Beckett persists.

But let's move on to more diligent women. Close to the top of the list is Mariann Fischer Boel, the EU's agriculture commissioner. This wife of a Danish farmer is highly approachable and a good listener.

Only last week she met young farmers from all over the EU in Brussels to discuss the future of their industry, and I stress it will be their industry.

Andrew Stewart of Lanarkshire was one of the Scottish delegation. He told me on his return that he was impressed by Boel's vision and the fact that she was talking not just of next year, but as far ahead as 2020.

The Republic of Ireland has a woman as minister, Mary Coughlan. I first met her almost four years ago in Cologne at the Anuga food fair. Since then she has forged a good working relationship with farmers and has proved willing to take action, as in the case of the special payment for suckler cows, if she believes it to be merited. She is known to use some fruity words on occasion, but if she is replaced following this year's elections, she will be missed.

Northern Ireland has had a female farm minister in the form of Brid Rodgers. She was an effective operator under difficult political circumstances and an excellent hostess as the Scottish farming press discovered in June 2001 when we were entertained at Stormont. The next agriculture minister in Northern Ireland will also be a woman. Michelle Gildernew is a member of Sinn Fein and has caused a few ripples, even before she officially takes office next month.

On this side of the water NFU Scotland has never to date elected a woman as president. My own view is that it should have and that person would have been Fiona Dalrymple. Perhaps Dalrymple never wanted the position, but she did sterling committee work on behalf of farmers for many years.

Another woman who does not receive the recognition she deserves is Margaret Stewart of Quality Meat Scotland. All through those long years when exports of British beef were banned, Stewart, with her considerable linguistic skills, maintained contact with former customers. That patience and perseverance is now paying off handsomely as markets are re-established.

The Land Army is now no more than a distant memory. But there is still an army out there in the countryside. It is that band of women who are the wives and partners of farmers.

They rear calves, help during the lambing season, keep the accounts and increasingly work off-farm to boost the low incomes of many farming businesses. They are the unsung heroines of rural Scotland.