Asked by: Carla Lockhart (Democratic Unionist Party - Upper Bann)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps his Department plans to take to address falling beef prices for UK producers; and what steps he is taking to promote UK beef to international markets during the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Victoria Prentis - Attorney General
Beef producers, as with other sectors, have been directly impacted by the closure of the food service sector as a result of the lockdown measures taken in response to Covid-19. This has led to problems with carcass imbalance.
The Government has well established ways of working with the food and farming industry supply chain to address temporary disruption. Defra and the devolved administrations are sharing the latest stakeholder information and data to ensure we have an evidence base for what is happening in specific markets, or specific geographical regions during the Covid-19 outbreak. The Secretary of State is also having regular meeting with the NFU and representatives of the beef sector.
Covid-19 impacts are also manifesting in the loss of export markets which would normally give value to parts of the carcass for which there is little demand in the UK and the shift away from the hospitality and food service sector to the retail sector.
Prices for prime cattle are showing signs of stabilising as industry has adapted and evolved to the current climate. Prices are up 3%, which is a positive sign of recovery.
Defra maintains a regular watching brief on the beef price and monitors all UK agricultural markets to provide forewarning of any atypical market movements and have continued to do so throughout the COVID-19 outbreak.
To help overcome the current imbalance in retail sales of beef, the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board, Quality Meat Scotland and Meat Promotion Wales are launching a £1.2 million ‘Make It Steak’, promotion campaign. The EU funded Private Storage Aid scheme also opened to the UK beef industry on 7 May.
Defra’s Food is GREAT campaign is raising the international profile and reputation of food and drink from across the UK. It builds global demand, drives awareness and increases positive perceptions of UK food and drink products amongst international trade audiences and consumers. The campaign promotes excellent food and drink products from across the four nations of the UK. For instance, most recently the campaign showcased British beef, Northern Irish gin, Scotch Whisky, Welsh lamb, Scottish Salmon and English Sparkling Wine to Japanese consumers, trade and media in events coinciding with the Rugby World Cup in Japan in 2019. Defra also continues to work in partnership with industry and other Government departments to open new markets for the meat sector. This has included recently opening beef and lamb markets to Japan and progressing towards opening of the beef market to China for the first time in over 20 years.
Asked by: Carla Lockhart (Democratic Unionist Party - Upper Bann)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how much funding his Department has allocated to tackle wildlife crime in each of the last three years.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Under our four year funding agreement with the National Wildlife Crime Unit, Defra has contributed £165,000 a year between 2016-2020 to the Unit’s activities. We have committed to maintaining the Defra contribution in 2020/21.
Furthermore, we provide up to £6.3 million per year to support international action to counter poaching and the illegal wildlife trade.
Asked by: Carla Lockhart (Democratic Unionist Party - Upper Bann)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps his Department is taking to support farmers and fishermen suffering from mental health problems.
Answered by Victoria Prentis - Attorney General
The mental health of all sections of the population, including farmers and fishermen, is one of this Government’s top priorities. The Government is committed to transforming mental health services and has announced a further expansion in the NHS Long Term Plan funded by an additional £2.3 billion a year in real terms by 2023/24. Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) are best placed to decide on how our investment in mental health services should be used locally to meet the needs of their populations living in rural and coastal areas. CCGs are responsible for ensuring adequate access to mental health services locally, including early interventions such as mental health first aid. Funding allocations to CCGs, including those covering rural areas, vary to meet the needs of local populations, including mental health need and the needs of remote or sparsely populated areas.
The Government takes the issue of farmers’ wellbeing very seriously and is committed to supporting the wellbeing of farmers, incorporating wellbeing into future agricultural policy. We recognise this is a time of uncertainty and are designing our farming reforms in collaboration with those who work in agriculture wherever we can, considering personal and business resilience issue. We meet regularly with representatives from the main farming and rural charities. We have launched a £1 million grant funding project to provide resilience support to farmers and land managers in England to help them prepare for the Agricultural Transition period that will take place from 2021-2027. A range of providers will work directly with farmers providing business and personal resilience support and we will learn lessons from this project, using the accumulated evidence and on-going feedback from the industry to help us develop any next steps for any future initiatives and support.
On fisheries, Defra is providing support to SeafarersUK in a research project called ‘The financial health and resilience of small-scale fishers, their families and communities’. Defra’s grant will help SeafarersUK to widen the scope of the research on this important topic in order to understand better the type of financial problems fishers experience, their underlying reasons and what could be done to support fishers become more financially/economically resilient. This will include consideration of the high levels of poor mental health among fishing communities.