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Farmers View 9th December
2009
As I begin to write my contribution to this
month's 'Farmer', the first predictions are being made that
primary food production will, on average, fall below the
line of profitability in 2010. Coming as it does after a few
better years, this will come as bad news to many and serve
to focus our minds on the need to recover every last penny
from the farming business in the year ahead. This will
include the need to ensure that, when we trade on our
reputation for quality, we are not carrying any passengers
with us.
The controversy over food labelling, or
should I say the lack of it, has been with us for as long as
I can remember – maybe even longer. The nature and the
substance of the label placed on a product convey subliminal
messages about quality, nutrition and of course, country of
origin. Needless to say, devious marketing men have always
been quick to exploit the opportunities afforded them by our
passive gullibility.
The perennial problem is that producing good
quality food would not be worth while unless it commands a
premium in the market place. To achieve that premium, a
product must be recognisable and be associated with a
reputation for quality. This is where the skill of labelling
comes in because, once a product has a reputation which
commands a premium, someone, somewhere, will be keen to have
their product mistaken for the more 'up market' brand.
In more recent times, legal requirements for
more information to be included has lead to 'clutter' on
labels and confusion in the mind of the customer. What we
still lack is a clear requirement for 'country of origin'
labelling on all food products across the EU. As a result of
previous campaigns we already have such a requirement on
beef, eggs, fruit and vegetables, wine, honey, olive oil and
we will soon have it on organic produce too. In the view of
many however, the time for this piecemeal approach to end
and be replaced with a blanket requirement has come.
Recent surveys in the United Kingdom have
shown that 80% of people thought that country of origin
labelling was important for meat and poultry and 74% for
dairy products. With farmers here in Scotland already
commercially disadvantaged by a host of welfare and
environmental restrictions which are not evenly applied
across the EU, we desperately need to be able to distinguish
our product from others in the mind of the consumer.
Consumers want consistency in labelling
across all sectors and there is no reason why mandatory
country of origin labelling should not be extended to the
remaining sectors as well as to the main ingredients of
semi-processed foods. The current guidelines are clearly not
working. There are loopholes in the legislation leading to
clear cases of misleading labelling - such as giving the
last place of processing and the place a product was packed
in - that finally need to be tightened up.
Regardless of the previous effort which has
gone into this, there remains clear evidence that processed
meat products are being labelled as British, even though
they are reared abroad.
The Conservative Party’s ‘honest food
campaign’ has sought to move policy on in this area and has
had the effect of putting additional pressure on policy
makers to change the rules.
Shadow Environment Secretary Nick Herbert
said country of origin labelling should be mandatory when he
launched his campaign earlier this year.
“A voluntary agreement between major food
retailers is inadequate and a compulsory labelling scheme is
now essential,” said Mr Herbert, blaming a ‘lack of
political will’ from the Government for the current
confusion.
There must be no doubt that we must have
clear labels explaining where a food product is processed
and where the main meat or fish ingredients are from and we
need to put an end to the current and entirely legal
practice of stamping a product ‘British’, even if the main
meat or fish ingredient comes from overseas.
This problem is, however, a Europe wide one
and, as a result, the solution must also lie in Europe. This
has lead to calls last month from National Farmer's Union
leaders South if the border for the European Parliament to
legislate to give clarity on the matter. This move comes
ahead of key discussions which will take place in both the
Environment and Agriculture Committees of the Parliament in
Brussels.
Previous attempts to establish clear rules
have been hampered by EU competition rules which have
prevented unilateral action by any one EU member state. The
answer therefore, is obvious – the EU should act, and act
quickly. It's time they earned their keep
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