Which is very similar to what they do in countries like Australia and America. Or did you, at that stage, think, This is so catastrophic, its just not going to happen? Did you think, I need this like a hole in the head, I could just go back to my farm and live a quiet life, rather than get stuck into this political morass? And now, within the Agricultural Act of 2020, the Secretary of State for Defra has access to a multi-annual plan. They have two sons, Roland and Philip. It runs, I think, central government and its departments for under a month. So, that was really compelling. WebMinette met her husband Alec Walters while she was at Durham and they married in 1978. And Australias big, offensive asks on beef, certainly, maybe lamb. I can remember challenging him at our February 2019 annual conference. You dont mention food production, you dont mention agriculture, all youre mentioning is the environment. Joanna Partridge NFU president Minette Batters on her farm in south Wiltshire with her Simmental cross cattle and dog, Basil. Those three things together, for a long-term business- I would say, if you werent worried then, you werent actively engaged. MB: I dont think we should underestimate the challenge you refer to of, not only piloting policy, but piloting delivery. WebMinette Batters is known for Midlands Today (1964), Kay Burley @Breakfast (2019) and Sky News Today (2001). I think it poses big questions for international trade. Minette Batters 0 Batters calls for Government assurances over impact of UK-Australia trade deal on UK farmers June 15, 2021 NFU president Minette Nov 13, 2021. farmbusiness.co.uk . Top $76,000-a-year New Jersey boarding school admits 'more should have been done' to stop bullying of boy, 17, who took his own life after being falsely accused of rape by cruel peers It was a formidable coalition. On that basis, it was catastrophic. UKICE: And were there any sensible preparations that you could do, or that you were talking about Defra doing, in that eventuality? Still the position remains today from our European partners that we must sign up to dynamic alignment of rules across the EU SPS area. And everybody was adamant that we could not have a border on the island of Ireland. We needed to be able to work together, to shape what the future needed to look like. UKICE: Chequers obviously didnt go anywhere and sunk at the Salzburg Summit, but Theresa May does land a Withdrawal Agreement and Parliament is not passing it. Of course, if in effect you listen to everybody, then it does allow you the opportunity of going away and doing your own thing, because youve got all these dissenting voices. In 2019 Minette was appointed a Deputy Lieutenant of Dorset. I cant speak for the Ulster Farmers Union. Set in the 14th century at the time of the bubonic plague, The Last Hours took several years to research and write. Has this led to a fundamental change in the relationship between the NFU and the governments of the different parts of the UK? It doesnt mean to say that it wont come back, but its going to take a lot of working together. If government is going to introduce legislation on higher welfare, it needs to effectively put its money where its mouth is, and make sure that our procurement is only sourcing at those standards. Are they worried about this unfairness to British producers? I sat back down next to him and I said, What do you think? And he looked at me, slightly surprised, and he said, I think youre very brave. MB: What wed been talking about, accepting that we were no longer going to be a part of the Single Market, was how free and frictionless trade was needed on both sides. Defra had always been a slightly second, third, ranked department, partly because so much of its policy was run from Europe rather than domestically. If we go and dilute that massively, and have a flood of much cheaper imports, that is obviously going to undermine our farmers. And why did you decide on your ultimate tactic, as we headed towards the referendum? What difference did it make to you in engaging with the Government when Michael Gove, on rehabilitation into the Cabinet, took over from Andrea Leadsom, and started to make a lot of noise about what post-Brexit policy might look like? UKICE: Rather intriguingly, George Eustice, given his background, put down one of the indicative votes proposing UK accession to EFTA. Dont forget, Michael Gove did not hold back in this arena, he is well documented and publicised. MINETTE BATTERS: I have huge admiration for farmers across the world, not least our cousins in Australia and New Zealand. Then there was the permanent focus, bearing in mind that successive governments have driven people out of doing what are deemed not to be office-based jobs, I suppose. I think there was a sort of realisation then that, actually, they hadnt got this quite right, and they needed to be talking about farmers, about food production. WebMinette Batters NFU President Minette runs a tenanted family farm in Wiltshire. We were hearing the mantra of its going to be great because its going to be cheaper. All rights reserved. We also knew that campaigning on either side, for a membership organisation, would be really counter-productive. Minette Batters, NFU President NFUonline Defra has obviously got form on implementation challenges, after trying to roll out what, on the face of it, was an easier payment scheme in the mid-2000s. I just wondered whether that perception of the farming sector is right, or if it was much more evenly split than that? Id be lying if I said I didnt think that. The National Farmers' Union (NFU) is demanding a written guarantee from the government that Brexit won't undermine British farming standards. Retail is now very loyal to British sourcing, so were seeing good prices across a range of agricultural products. We do have to be all things to all men, whether its arable, livestock, dairy, horticulture plus all those cross-cutting issues of environment, land use, tenancy issues. Because of the size of our population, because of the size of the sector, food and farming employs one in eight people. Contact: Agent | Publisher | General inquiries. Minette Batters (MB): Well, George has been in Defra a long time. We were well aware then that agriculture is incredibly complex, and always the last chapter in trade deals to be achieved. Minette met her husband Alec Walters while she was at Durham and they married in 1978. Yes, we did have very high-quality affordable food, the most affordable in Europe, the third most affordable in the world. Above all else, I want to see honesty to farmers about the road that they are on from our political leaders. But does the farming industry feel that its adapting okay, or are there surprising new challenges, unanticipated challenges, emerging? Walters was the first crime/thriller writer to win three major prizes with her first three books. Well, that will be really, really damaging. MB: Covid, in many ways, with food supply, helped, actually, because the engagement was there with agriculture and food and government. But ultimately, there were two sides to all of this, and the UK wasnt the only party in the negotiations. MB: No, its a massively significant issue. That is still ongoing, and we still dont know what the future of checks is going to look like. The Best Foreign Honkaku Mystery of the Decade, Vice-Lieutenant and Deputy Lieutenants of Dorset, "Minette Walters announces first book in decade and retirement from crime fiction", "The Siege of Lyme Regis Dorset History Centre blog", "1349 by Minette Walters - Gregory & Company Authors' Agents", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Minette_Walters&oldid=1148375305, Short description is different from Wikidata, All articles with vague or ambiguous time, Vague or ambiguous time from October 2012, Articles with unsourced statements from October 2012, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0. Minette Batters could not have chosen a more difficult time to become the first female president of the National Farmers Union (NFU). Minette Batters (MB): It was interesting, wasnt it, when Theresa May came in? Or was it like the rest of the population, where views seemed to be fairly entrenched? Ive met with the Australian negotiating team, and they are absolutely determined that they should have free access on beef and sheep. Her novels are often set against real backgrounds and real events to draw her readers into the 'reality' of what she is writing about. Menu. So, Australia is really just the start of what this is going to look like. Minette Batters is the first female President of the National Farmers' Union in its 111-year history. Minette Caroline Mary Walters DL[1] (born 26 September 1949) is an English crime writer. Apr 13 2023. UKICE: Did you get a sense that government actually appreciated the lengths of those lead times in farming? And its still not resolved, which just shows how complex it is. What we are seeing played out and its showing more with fish is that groupage is really difficult. And we got that. Brexit Witness Archive - Minette Batters - UK in a changing Europe Weve now got the two licences in place for that. So, that was the conversation, literally, with Theresa May she hadnt realised how complex SPS was. Of course, getting your voice heard in all of this was quite a challenge, I think, for the goods sector. Ms She graduated from Trevelyan College, Durham in 1971 with a BA in French. What did you think of that process, working with the Government on getting people ready for a whole bunch of really complicated border formalities that they havent had to bother with, to nearly as great an extent, over the last 45 years? Minette Batters Wiki, Biography, Age, Career, Scoops about National Farmers Union . What we must avoid is a two-tier food system. RT @RainNewtonSmith: Great podcast with the brilliant @Minette_Batters of @NFUtweets passionate about the role of farmers in nature restoration, energy and food security. On gene editing, yes, on plant breeding, its a massive opportunity. As a net importer from the EU, and it being our most important export market, it was in the economic interest for farmers on both sides that we added as little cost and friction as possible. History will judge what we did harshly if we get it wrong, so we cannot afford to miss a beat. They have two sons: Roland, who is married to Charlotte, and Philip, who is married to Sarah: and three granddaughters: Madeleine, Martha and Hermione. Minette Batters - President, National Farmers Union of England and Wales. Michael was very bought into that. How did you find dealing with the new team, compared to the May team? Minette Batters (MB): Well, George has been in Defra a long time. Bring everybody into the room, have a massive discussion, and then he would leave the room and you were never quite sure as to who had been listened to. Lovely to listen while running through Oxfordshire farms. Minette Batters, better known by her family name Minette Bridget Batters, is a popular British farmer and trade unionist. Baroness McIntosh of Pickering with NFU Vice President The NFU launched a levelling-up report, because when we look at the whole levelling-up agenda, it cant just be about north versus south, weve got to look at opportunity across the whole country. So, I continue to hold them to account on that. But that F4 group is still trying to work through these thorny areas. Australia is the sort of precedent FTA because that will be the first one, potentially, that is concluded. [13], Walters' first five books were adapted for television by the BBC and her eighth book, Acid Row, is currently[when?] MB: I can remember being on the Today programme, in Broadcasting House, with Michael Gove being interviewed, when he published the Agricultural Bill. UKICE: Are officials more accessible, if you cant get in to talk to Lord Frost? In fact, the solid line from the NFU had been that we wanted to maintain our high standards of animal welfare. What we wanted to do primarily was to open doors, doors that were shut due to some seeing agriculture as a problem. [citation needed]. UKICE: When you got over the total shock and start regrouping, youre facing the prospect that, despite your stated position that, on balance, it was better for UK farming to remain, youre going to have to cope with the outcome of a Leave vote. The story contains many of the same themes that occur in her earlier books, and, along with its sequel, The Turn of Midnight, published in 2018, draws readers into the frightening reality of the Black Death. I think Im right in saying that we were one of the first trade bodies, across any sector, to commission economic analysis and absolutely the first in the agri-food space. When I see the out-of-home sector has been offline, with everybody buying products out of retail, prices in the red meat are pretty good because retail has become very loyal to British sourcing, because the British consumer has demanded it. I think, on an official level on both sides, they could see the enormous challenge, but the decision that that had to be resolved was purely political. The novella is based on the 1908 murder of Caroline Luard. We had other members who were saying, You cannot take a position, or, If you do take a position, it must be vote Remain, or, It must be vote Leave. Born on 1967 in Unknown, Minette Batters I just wondered if this was done in concert with you was this George Eustice acting as the NFUs representative in Parliament? MB: No more than the rest of Europe did. It means that the future absolutely has to be got right, and delivery has to work. Minette describes herself as an exploratory writer who never uses a plot scheme, begins with simple premises, has no idea whodunit until halfway through a story, but who remains excited about each novel because she, along with her reader, wants to know what happens next. We use cookies to enhance your user experience. The mixed farming business includes a 100-cow continental cross suckler herd, as well as sheep and arable. So, in June 2020 we had over a million people in two weeks saying, Weve got to have a Trade and Agriculture Commission, MPs have got to be able to have their say. And I was going out, putting on the radio, listening to Radio 4 and saying the same thing, going back in, looking at the television, thinking, This cant be right. Minette Batters Co founder, Ladies in Beef and GBBW. At the moment, their demand is that we sign up to follow EU rules and the Government, as you know, is clear that we will not sign up to that. Will either one? So, its now going to be brought into the funding cycle of Parliament. Actually, Lord Plumb joined the discussion and Sir David Naish joined that discussion, as well as other previous Presidents. That was the frustration. At the moment, the Crown Commercial Service contract for the NHS, for prisons, schools, is set so low that you cant even get fresh produce into it, let alone free-range eggs. We did still have the practical issue though to register as either Remain or Leave with the Electoral Commission so as not to fall foul of the impending spending limits on our activity. UK in a Changing Europe (UKICE): Michael Gove was a relatively long-serving Defra Secretary of State, by Defra standards. Minette Batters (MB): In the run-up, I think we were beginning to think, This is pretty difficult for a membership organisation. To get to wholesale ways of trading, whereby you have one truck full of one thing, is going to be easier to resolve. Are you worried by that? WebAccording to the latest Twitter stat on 2023-02-11, Minette Batters has a total favourites count of 10625 on the Twitter account and Minette Batters has 22.3 Thousand followers Its also so complex, this area. Walters joined IPC Magazines as a sub-editor in 1972 and became an editor of Woman's Weekly Library the following year. Were such a big organisation, representing 50,000 farmers across England and Wales. minette batters So, thats what we did in that very first instance. This is what Michael kicked off, effectively, with David Rutley, in the very beginning. The union's president Minette Batters will make the call at their conference later today amid growing concerns about the implications of Brexit for farming - whether a deal is struck or not. I think there was a bit of a fait accompli moment, that we live in a democratic country, democracy has been played out, and our focus was always on, How does this work best for British agriculture? I think Defra has very strong views on all of this, I know George Eustice does. Officials suddenly became very energised, because they had someone who was really digging in on every area of detail. So, I think we pretty soon realised that this was going to be difficult. This arguably makes her the most powerful farmer in the UK; she She said: "Back in 2009, my friend Minette Batters and I saw that positive messages about Red Tractor-assured British beef were not getting through to the So, influencing is going to be important. NFU President. And that still remains the challenge. But Chequers, with its common rule book, allowed for that situation with the island of Ireland to be avoided, and it potentially paved the way for us to transition into an international trading relationship, but with the complexity of the deal with the EU and the UK sorted. Given he was one of the greatest proponents in the Brexit debate, of isnt it great, food is going to be cheaper. Weve got to be able to look at, actually, how we enable these growers to have access to the workforce that they need. I think it is always challenging when you work with a majority government. Now with correct twitter handle! Minette has written another entry in the Quick Reads series entitled A Dreadful Murder for World Book Day 2013. MB: We made continual calls, between Nick von Westenholz, myself and the other office-holders, with backbench MPs, talking about how dire a no deal would be. So, a no deal and I will stand by it forever and a day would have been absolutely disastrous for British agriculture. I went out to the Republic of Ireland to the massive ploughing match that they have, talked with the Irish Farmers Association, as we have done for our entire time, within COPA-COGECA, and also visited the Northern Ireland border and our colleagues in UFU. But with his unfrozen moment speech and things like that, were you worried that he was veering too much in that direction, and wasnt taking full account of the needs of food security or valuing food production? Minette met her husband Alec Walters while she was at Durham and they married in 1978. So, I think everybody no matter what they say now was in total shock at what had happened. Things could go massively Walters joined IPC Magazines as a sub-editor in The EU, of course, are taking that to say, Products are coming into the UK so easily, not getting checked, this is going to be your policy for the rest of the world. Then weve got political issues, like seed potatoes- there is no reason why seed potatoes should be blocked out of the EU market. UKICE: But they still prioritised doing deals with the US, though maybe receded slightly. But I think, as the farming unions, we were all in the same place of wanting an approach that kept the UK internal market functioning fairly, and that there werent winners and losers. So, having been the preferred destination for European seasonal workers to come to, we now had this huge challenge that we were going to pull up the drawbridge. Five generations of her family have run the farm but, like the new NFU president, she is the first woman to take the reins. Well, we still dont actually know, publicly, what trade policy is. During a gap year between school and Durham University, 1968, Minette volunteered in Israel with The Bridge in Britain, working on a kibbutz and in a delinquent boys home in Jerusalem. Batterss 17-year-old twins, who are studying for their A-levels, havent decided if they will take over running the farm, but it remains a family business. I dont think that agriculture and food have been given, effectively, the opportunity to empower a UK workforce. You were looking at, I think it was David Dimbleby and at the arrows and thinking, No, that cant be right. The end of this will be judged in the years to come. That isnt going to happen overnight, because weve actively pushed people away from doing those jobs. UKICE: Theresa May was absolutely clear that Brexit meant ending free movement, but farming and food processing had been very dependent on Eastern European migration for a long time. Still, what keeps me awake at night is this desire to raise standards here. Weve always maintained that, in the UK, we dont want to lower standards, but there has always been a concern as to what imports and the future of international trade will look like. So, it was never about an unfair approach and it was never about a protectionist approach. What are my members going to be doing in future? California probably has higher standards than many parts of Europe. So, we put our energies into that, rather than trying to stop anything or have another referendum. Because one thing is for certain, you cant be all things to all men. Its one that I take incredibly seriously and one that does keep me awake for many a night, yes. To our minds, this had been a democratic decision of the nation. We have commissioned some independent research to look at the viability of the new schemes, of how much will be lost, effectively, from BPS, and how much can be made up through either the agri-environment schemes or through the sustainable farming incentive. MB: I still think that is undecided, effectively. Minette Batters UK in a Changing Europe (UKICE): Were now about five months into the end of the transition, five months into the new global migration scheme. But what I did see very quickly with Michael was someone who was very prepared to dive down into every area of technical detail and grasp it. Her father died from kidney failure in 1960. There have been challenges. Within six months of that new government I was conscious that wed led the standards campaign. Australia can move livestock not only across the country but across seas, thousands and thousands of kilometres, and we have just banned it here. At the moment, I feel weve got a lot of warm words, and we just need to know the nuts and bolts of what the genuine ambition is for this country. UKICE: If you look at the whole period together, farming is obviously one of those areas where the big decisions used to be taken in Brussels, but theyre now being taken in a mix of London, Cardiff, Edinburgh. It launched some plans for new tariffs, which were quite interesting, and it also made clear that it was prioritising regulatory autonomy, sovereignty, over removing friction. These have been continuous weekly dialogue groups, with officials and ministers. It took two and a half years to write and was rejected by numerous publishing houses until Maria Rejt, Macmillan Publishers, bought it for 1250. But I think, every time we treated no deal as a live reality, we had to prepare for it. You were planting crops and you were making business decisions, having no idea whether you had a market or not. Boris Johnson was operating from a seismic majority, and so they have the power base to do whatever they want. Do you think that the Brexit that has played out so far is at least meeting their expectations, in terms of what new opportunities it would bring? Wedding and Corporate events venue. Checking everything against the principles was pretty key, because if you are leading an organisation, which I wasnt then, Meurig Raymond was, it is really critical to have that solid evidence based foundation from which to operate, and from which to build our policy and lobbying position from. Im not so sure. Its sort of backfiring at the moment, and we still, I think, really need to know what the future is going to look like, and where the improvements are going to be. Down on the farm | Salisbury Journal Exports are down though, with specialist cheesemakers and products such as fresh cream taking a massive hit. Stephen Sackur talks to Minette Batters, Fundamentally, we need to be producing much more of our fruit and veg here. Webshreveport obituaries minette batters family. Its obviously still a strange time, because weve still got Covid. We established that body, because we realised this was going to be massive, it was going to mean change, and we would have to think and operate differently, in order to satisfy our members needs for knowledge on all of this. I think we all knew what problems were coming, but I think the challenge was, what was going to be done about them? In all these challenges, we knew that any border would have to be in the Irish Sea. UKICE: When you saw the Northern Ireland Protocol that the Prime Minister had agreed to, did you anticipate that it was going to cause what appeared to be quite a lot of problems for east-west trade in agrifood products? They still are. So, once youd gone by those, you were into a no deal scenario by default. HARDtalk. UKICE: At the moment, we have this sort of asymmetric border, dont we? Did you target any of the backbenchers who were holding out? We asked the Wageningen team to carry out an economic impact assessment of what our departure would mean, and to show the effects on markets if new trade barriers were constructed between the EU and the UK. UK in a Changing Europe (UKICE): You have a Conservative leadership battle that ends up with Theresa May becoming Prime Minister. I would pose the question what does that mean for government buying standards? 30 Apr 2023 11:52:44 UKICE: Did you have any qualms about becoming NFU President in the middle of this process? It was never going to be, for them, the same as remaining part of the single market. So, we had a very good discussion at NFU Council in April 2016. For me, the issue was, How do we pivot this back to the policies that are needed for sustainable food production?. Beat government by ten years? But doing it well means really working collaboratively with everybody in the food and farming sector. She supplemented her salary by writing romantic novelettes, short stories, and serials in her But I was well aware that wed burnt quite a lot of bridges with people, who felt that the NFU had behaved badly. Weve legislated to achieve net zero, but there is so much that can be achieved through new policy thinking as to what that looks like, and ultimately, our opportunity to influence European thinking. I think the commitment was to get over 80% of the trade done in the term of this Parliament. Northern Ireland are looking like they will carry on with the status quo. National Farmers Union is reportedly in talks to read more company news. UKICE: Weve got Defra about to implement the new farm payment scheme. Do you get the sense that this is a long-term policy, that the Government doesnt want to invest in the border? Straight away she ruled out being part of the Single Market, and we had those big speeches at Lancaster House, Mansion House, that were hard-line Brexit positions. Were still developing the thinking, still influencing, and with the academics and the science community working with us, we are making huge progress.