The NFU has said today’s Sustainable Livestock Bill, while admirable, has failed to take on board the work already being undertaken by the sector in improving the sustainability of British livestock farming.
The Private Members Bill, published today, is sponsored by Robert Flello MP and requires the government to devise a strategy to ensure the sustainability of the livestock food industry.
However NFU President Peter Kendall said that while the organisation is firmly committed to working with politicians and other organisations in improving the industry’s record on sustainability, the Bill can not be supported in its present form.
"First and foremost this Bill represents policy aspiration, not law. I believe the UK government, present or future, should be free to develop its policy on the sustainability of the food and farming sector, working in partnership with industry and other interested organisations, as it sees fit. While the aspirations of this Bill are admirable, they are unsuited to legislation.
"I remain convinced there are better ways of improving farming’s environmental impact, primarily by seeing through the voluntary and industry-led initiatives that are already underway rather than add further burdensome regulation. Under a variety of schemes including the Greenhouse Gas Action Plan, the Beef and Sheep Roadmap, and the encouragement of sustainable soya production in Brazil through the FEMAS, GHG emissions from the whole of the agricultural sector, including livestock, have already been reduced by more than 20 per cent between 1990 and 2008.
"We remain strongly opposed to measures that attempt to regulate the industry’s approach to this important issue. Its focus on a duty to ensure the sustainability of the livestock sector is impossible to define in a legally enforceable way, and there is no enforcement mechanism in any case. Furthermore, some provisions in the Bill are of questionable legal status, for example a requirement to regulate the consumption of imports which potentially contravene world and EU trade rules. Such an unenforceable element would mean British famers are put at a competitive disadvantage and could see consumers buying imported produce that will not have met any of the criteria being sought in this Bill."
The NFU has also accused some organisations of making disingenuous claims that the Bill will achieve things that are completely absent from its provisions. These include a ban on large dairies, an enforced reduction in meat and dairy in people’s diets, and the erection of trade barriers on imported animal feed.
"Whatever one’s personal opinions on the rights and wrongs of these very complex issues, it is insincere to make claims about the Bill in order to garner support for its passage – both amongst MPs and the general public – which are not supported by the published text. There must be a question as to whether these organisations are seeking to hijack the Bill for their own ends," said Mr Kendall.
