Food for public sector to be monitored to see how much is grown in UK

Food supplied to the public sector will be monitored for the first time to see how much was grown by British farmers, the environment secretary is to announce.

Steve Reed will speak at the Oxford Farming Conference on Thursday in an attempt to reset his relationship with the farming sector after a tumultuous start in his role. Farmers have been angry about issues including changes to the inheritance tax regime, cuts to EU-derived subsidies and delays to flood payments for submerged farms.

The sector has been asking for meaningful reforms to the supply chain, as farmers are currently paid just a penny for every loaf of bread or block of cheese sold, as well as support for their businesses as climate breakdown causes problems such as drought and floods.

Reed will announce that Labour is aiming for half of food procured for the public sector to be from British farms, which would be worth £2.5bn a year to farmers. He will also announce plans to make it easier for farmers to put solar panels on their rooftops and wind turbines at the bottom of fields, as well as to deregulate the planning system so farmers can more easily build barns and other infrastructure.

Guy Singh-Watson, an organic farmer and founder of the vegetable box company Riverford, said these policies “benefit property developers more than farmers”.

“I don’t think these policies benefit many farmers. I think the planning policies benefit property developers more than farmers, and planning is there for a reason, often to protect our countryside. I don’t think these policies solve the problem for most farmers.”

He added that the main problem, a lack of profitability for farmers, has not been addressed: “The main issue farmers are facing is they don’t get paid properly for what they produce. These policies do not address that issue. Vegetable producers get no protection from predatory pricing.

“I’m not saying it’s easy to regulate market forces – we are in a world where we are all used to the market being king, but the reality is the market power is very imbalanced and it does need regulating. Farmers have a lot of pretty amazing tax breaks, but despite this, they still cannot continue – they are earning less than 1% return and £30,000 a year if they are lucky.”

Previous governments have said farming is key to nature recovery, with former Tory environment secretary Michael Gove having made radical changes to the EU-derived farming subsidy schemes so they paid farmers for “public goods” such as restoring nature instead of simply owning land and producing food.

However, Reed will say the focus on food production has been lost. He will tell farmers: “The primary purpose of farming has – and always will be – to produce the food that feeds the nation. Too many policymakers in Whitehall lose sight of that fact. This government is putting food production firmly back on the agenda.”

Martin Lines, the chief eecutive of the Nature Friendly Farming Network, said: “While the government’s emphasis on ensuring farms are viable and profitable is welcome, it is concerning that it appears to be primarily looking at this issue through a narrow lens focused on food production.

“It will simply not be possible to continue producing food in the future without mitigating the impact of climate change and taking steps to address the loss of nature and biodiversity. If we don’t put the environment and nature at the heart of farming, food security will be in peril.

“The government also needs to prevent the importing of substandard products made to lower environmental and public health standards than those produced by British farmers. If it truly wants to put British agriculture on the right footing for the future, government must use all the levers at its disposal.”

Farmers have been undercut by supermarkets and others in the supply chain for decades now, often locked into contracts that mean farmers are paid below the cost of production.

Farming groups have been calling on the government to make the supply chain fairer so growers are paid fairly. Reed will commit to “boosting profitability through fair competition across the supply chain” and point to new rules coming in for the pig sector aimed at ensuring that contracts clearly set out expectations and that changes can only be made if agreed to by all parties. Similar regulations for eggs and fresh produce will follow, Reed will say.