Therese Coffey was on Wednesday booed by farmers after saying UK egg shortages had not been caused by “market failure”, in her first appearance at the National Farmers’ Union conference as environment secretary.
In a bad-tempered onstage exchange with NFU president Minette Batters, Coffey maintained that she was “not necessarily seeing a market failure in poultry” after egg farmers cut back production because of spiralling input costs, leading to empty supermarket shelves.
Batters, who had called for government to intervene to support producers, retorted that “we had a billion less eggs [produced] in 2022 [compared with 2021]” and “we’ve lost businesses”. She later said she “took real exception to the secretary of state’s denial”.
The exchange formed part of a testing visit to the NFU conference for Coffey, as farmers challenged her and farming minister Mark Spencer over a range of problems linked to Brexit and high inflation, highlighting disillusionment in rural constituencies with recent Conservative governments.
Farmers reserved a warmer reception for Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer, who on Tuesday insisted farming was “in [his] DNA” and that the UK “must not lose sight of farming as a business”.
Matthew Blair, a beef and sheep farmer in Cumbria, wrote on Twitter that he had been “very impressed with how well [Starmer] spoke”.
The conference came as retailers warned that fruit and vegetable shortages would last “for weeks” as bad weather in southern Europe and north Africa was compounded by a drop in domestic production outside peak season because of soaring energy costs.
Coffey further angered farmers by saying with reference to the shortages — which have so far led three supermarkets to ration fresh produce — that she “can’t control the weather in Spain”.
Marion Regan, managing director of fruit and arable growers Hugh Lowe Farms in Kent, said at the event: “[Coffey] dismissed the empty shelves . . . so I don’t think she does understand the challenges facing the horticulture sector . . . This is about the wider costs.”
Farmers have been buffeted by pressures including the gradual removal of EU-style subsidies, new checks on imports to the bloc, and spiralling prices for energy, feed, labour and fertiliser.
These have led to gaps on supermarket shelves over the past year, including egg shortages in late 2022 after farmers reduced their laying flocks because of cost increases. UK egg production declined 7.8 per cent in 2022 to 869mn dozen from a year earlier, according to official data, and shortages are still being reported.
James Mottershead, a Shropshire poultry farmer and chair of the NFU’s poultry board, said it was “disheartening” that the industry’s pleas to government “keep falling on deaf ears”. He said ministers “should use the powers that they have under the Agriculture Act to address failures in the supply chain . . . and they should get out on farms and see the problems”.
The scarcity of eggs has been followed by pressure on fruit and vegetables this week, with Asda, Aldi and Morrisons rationing purchases of products including tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers.
Batters urged ministers to provide more support with growers’ energy bills, but the government rejected her call to add them to the roster of “energy-intensive” industries requiring extra support, saying it would “increase costs for other bill payers, including households”.
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is reviewing the supply chains for dairy and pigs, where farmers have also come under pressure. Coffey told the conference these reviews would be completed soon.
She also won a rare round of applause when she said she did not support the reintroduction of apex predators, such as lynx and wolves, a project supported by rewilding groups in different parts of the UK.
