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In the session, the panel including NFU President Minette Batters, NFU agrifood Policy delivery manager Jack Watts and NFU Energy technical director Jon Swain tackled questions on volatile markets, contracts and the energy relief scheme.

Championing farming within Government

Opening the session, NFU President Minette Batters outlined how the organisation was working across political parties and how the NFU was making the case for farmers: “The political roadmap is very uncertain right now. At the Conservative Party Conference the Secretary of State talked about three areas: delivering for the environment, delivering for food and outlining a big ambition for growth.

“While we welcome the scheme, agriculture and horticulture must be classed as vulnerable sectors and we have to make sure there is continuing support and investment in our sector if we are going to put our arms around production.

“»Ê¼Ò»ªÈËhas to provide full-scale analysis of the impacts to ensure government listens, and that is what we will do.

Long-term certainty needed after six-month scheme

Speaking during the session, Jack said: "The feedback we've had from members is that the initial six months just isn't long enough to have a material impact. In the new year there will be a mid-term review of the six-month scheme which will be used to inform where targeted support is rolled out after April 2023.

"This will be rolled out for vulnerable sectors which hasn't yet been defined. There are hints that this will be for sectors facing multiple sources of cost inflation will be considered as part of that vulnerability criteria and clearly agriculture and horticulture has cost inflation on many fronts including labour, fertiliser and feed.

Jack reiterated that the NFU's will continue to seek clarity on the initial six-month period, as well as demonstrating the need for further long-term certainty beyond April and the multiple roles energy plays on food production.

The link between energy and gas

NFU Energy's Jon Swain said that understanding the intrinsic link between energy was vital, as was unpicking the factors that have influenced the upward turn in prices: "Many of these high energy prices started nearly two years ago and there was always an expectation we would see an increase in prices this year due to worldwide factors including.

"This includes the decoupling of our energy market from Europe, the Covid recovery and impacts of gas and storage. Compounded with the situation with Russia and Ukraine, this has seen prices skyrocket. 

"We must expect that as our gas market is so intrinsically linked with electricity generation that anything that happens in the gas market influences the energy price. The wholesale market is dominated by the generation of electricity from gas and there isn't yet a decoupling of that for us to benefit from lower-generation costs of renewable energy."

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The panel