LETTER: Farmers deserve a fair price for food

Farmers throughout the country are providing a vital fundamental of life – food – for which they should be rewarded at a satisfactory rate. The return that farmers seek is a fair one for the risk and investment made.

It would do the whole population good to reflect on this. Before retiring I worked with farmers for more than 40 years and was always in awe of their resilience, bombarded with officialdom at every turn, all and sundry telling them how to farm, and nobody really appreciating what they do – or the commitment they make.

All of the farmers that I met did not want subsidies – just a fair price for their produce.

This country continues to import vast quantities of food with a total value of about £20 billion per annum and rising. The continuing drive by supermarkets to suppress the price of basic foods is not sustainable.

Just consider the next time you buy milk at the supermarket how much you pay compared with the bottled water, fruit juice, wine, beer or any other liquid food, and the relative food value of each.

Farmers deserve both our support and respect – I suspect there are few, if any, who would change places with them on the same “terms and conditions”.

HOWARD BLACKBURN,

Holme Hill,

Clitheroe