‘Cows die, your family dies, you will die the same. The only thing I know that doesn’t die is rightly-earned reputation.’
Havamal, #77
British farming stands at a post-Brexit crossroads. One road leads us away from Europe, towards the international markets and the cut-throat competition thereof. The other leads us back to Europe, towards a continued alignment with EU-dictated regulation. Our government must make a choice. Neither option seems to me to be very promising. Given our relatively (from an international perspective) limited resources, competing globally will always be difficult: we will never have as much space as New Zealand, as much sunshine as France, or as much freshly deforested super-soil as Brazil. And we will always struggle to compete in Europe without being integrated with Europe.
I think there is an alternative option, one that sees us blaze a trail in a new and distinctive direction. This direction is to prioritise ethics at the expense of productivity. We should aim to be world-leaders in reputation.
There is tremendous value in reputation. We are all familiar with the value of a brand. It is a maker’s mark. And what is this, if not a representation of reputation? In being free to determine our own regulations, we now get to decide what our brand will represent, what it will stand for. I say we should lead the way in ethical farming.
In contrast to the alternatives, I think we are internationally well-placed to do this, not least because many British farmers already pursue the internationally highest ethical standards as a matter of course. Most of this goes unrecognised because it goes without saying. It’s about time we capitalised on this unseen value.
We are well placed to do this because of our climate and landscape: we are already forced to pursue practices that would be economically punishing elsewhere, where there is more space. A densely-populated island nation cannot get away with polluting water courses, for example, because the impacts would be immediately obvious and serious. So we naturally don’t do it and fight it when it is done; it goes without saying. This is not the case in other parts of the world, as anyone who has tasted Floridian tap water will know.
We are well placed to do this because of our culture: our non-farming population increasingly values ethical, organic, and environmentally-friendly produce. Whilst the majority of British consumers buy some organic food and the market share of organic produce has shown consistent growth, the percentage of British farming that is organic is well below the European average. There is an obvious opportunity for British farmers to better align with British consumers here.
We are well placed to do this because of our tradition and history: many parts of the British landscape are crafted by rural tradition and we need to ensure that that continues. The British people value these landscapes – which we call ‘nature’ (though of course they are not natural) – and we capitalise on the market value of this through tourism. Keeping our landscapes green and pleasant is vital to our national identity and patriotic self-esteem.
And so, because of who we are and what we are, we have to do most of these ethical things anyway, why not get something in return? We should align our outward appearance with our inner nature, and market ourselves as what we are: ethically-superior farmers that produce ethically-superior produce. If you value the ethical, you should value our produce over others.
The government recognises a version of this, which they term ‘public money for public goods’. They say that British farmers will only get money from the government if they continue to provide ethically-superior produce and green and pleasant landscapes. They say they need their money’s worth. And that’s fair enough.
You need your money’s worth, and that means we need to do what you are asking us to do. But we need our goods’ worth, which means you need to capitalise on the value we are giving you. If you throw it away with a loss of reputation, whilst undercutting the domestic market with cheap imports, are we getting our goods’ worth? Are we getting a fair price? Because the goods that we are providing are more than just produce. It should not be sold so cheaply.
People may say ‘it’s a free market’. People may say ‘if you can’t beat them, join them’. But we cannot beat them and we should not join them. If you can neither beat them nor join them, then you should probably play your own game and perhaps one day they will want to join you. We have an opportunity to be world-leaders in reputation. That is what will remain when all the cows are dead.
tobybetenson.com 