A leading banker has called on farmers to sit down with their professional advisers as soon as possible to review businesses ahead of a “tough”, uncertain 2023.
In an end-of-year message, Virgin Money’s UK head of agriculture, Brian Richardson, said a squeeze on farm incomes seemed “pretty inevitable” and out of the industry’s control.
He added: “Despite concerns over food security, the government seems to view this as a supply chain issue the market will sort out, so we are reliant on food manufacturers and supermarkets to do the right thing, not something that has shown to be effective in the past!
“Hopefully the squeeze on incomes will not be as bad as many fear but it is certainly the time to look closely at all aspects of your business. Farmers need to focus on what they can control; an iron hand on all costs, testing the market where possible and reviewing all inputs. It is a time to review business efficiency and productivity. What does the farm do well and what could be better?”
Mr Richardson added that while reviewing their businesses, farmers should take a “deep delve” into how they are run and any longer term plans.
Turning to the future, he acknowledged that the Scottish Government’s new agricultural policy has been slow to emerge, and added that it was important producers north of the border were not left behind when it came to testing new policy and finding out how it worked in practice.
“Scotland can learn from this (England’s experience) and build more robust and workable schemes to achieve the environmental goals that are unlikely to go away,” he said.
“Getting these in place sooner rather than later will be helpful and avoid a lot of change happening at once. Hopefully more progress can be made on policy development in Scotland in 2023 to set a clearer path for the future.”
