Julian meets local farmers on boosting food production and jobs to beat rising prices
June 11, 2022
This Friday Julian met with farmers from around York at Crockey Hill near Naburn to hear their views on what the government can do to help them produce more nutritious, affordable food, and create new jobs and apprenticeships for local residents.
He listened to producers in the dairy, potatoes, eggs, meat, wheat and vegetable sectors from Elvington, Poppleton, Wigginton, Dunnington, Escrick and Heslington.
Local farmers are keen to prevent rising world fertiliser prices affecting production and increasing the price at which they have to sell their products. The meeting agreed that rising global food prices as economies recover from covid, and how the pandemic and Ukraine war have demonstrated the vulnerability of world supply chains, highlight the vital and growing importance of food production within the UK.
Central to this is being able to recruit enough workers, and they pressed Julian on the need to promote farming as a high-skill, high-wage career that can offer significant opportunities to school leavers. Local producers argued more apprenticeship and skills training options needed to be offered locally to aid this.
After the meeting, Julian said: “Recent world events and increasing living costs make supporting and expanding local food production more necessary than ever, and I will certainly be active in pushing Ministers on all the points raised by these essential local businesses
