Struggling farmers to get council help
Gloucestershire County Council are putting a focus on buying local produce
Gloucestershire’s farmers will get support from Shire Hall as civic chiefs recognise they face “real and growing pressure”.
Councillors unanimously agreed last week to show support for rural businesses and the wider agricultural sector in the county.
Gloucestershire County Council’s cabinet will be asked to conduct an audit of the council’s procurement to ensure that local produce is prioritised where financially reasonable.
And to review all their catering facilities, including in directly controlled care homes and schools, to prioritise produce from the county.
They also call for a report to be produced on the current success of the “Made in Gloucestershire” program, with a clear plan to address any shortcomings identified.
And that a public health plan be developed to promote their services in the rural community to tackle the mental health issues arising from this crisis. As well as an initiative to promote the benefits of eating locally-produced fresh products.
Conservative Councillor Daryl Corps, who proposed the motion at the meeting on March 25, said he brought it forward because farmers across Gloucestershire are under “real and growing pressure”.
“Those who put food on our tables and care for our countryside are facing a perfect storm,” the member for Moreton, Stow and the Rissingtons said.
“Rising costs, volatile markets, difficult weather and increasing pressures on labour are all coming to squeeze already fragile margins.
“For many family farms this is not theoretical, these are businesses built over generations now facing long term financial uncertainty that simply does not reflect the reality of how farming income actually works.”
He said many farmers are working “incredibly hard” for “very modest returns”.
Liberal Democrat Councillor Paul Hodgkinson (Bourton-on-the-Water and Northleach) also spoke in strong support of the motion who represents many of the county’s “hard-working farmers in the North Cotswolds”.
And Green Party councillor Chloe Turner agreed with the proposals and said she did not think the Government “understands the rural economy and farming in particular”.
The Minchampton councillor, who also leads Stroud District Council, said they have tried to make farming and regenerative agriculture a “key plank” of their economic strategy.
“We are a rural place and it is a very important and special part of our heritage, but also our future and the way we want our economy to work,” she said.
“So we try to put resources towards the things farmers tell us that they want.”
The council voted unanimously to approve the proposals.