Riverford founder Guy Singh-Watson is lamenting the state of British farming. He’s joined by Jimmy Doherty of Jimmy’s Farm fame (jimmysfarm.com); Chief Shepherdess Zoë Colville (@thechiefshepherdess), her farmer husband Kriss Woodhead (@thesuperseriousfarmer) and Ben Andrews (@bentheoandrews), a farmer with a big voice in the LGBTQ+ movement, working to promote diversity and inclusion in farming.
They’ve come together to launch a new campaign against ‘farmwashing’ – the practice of supermarkets portraying idyllic British farms in their marketing so that customers think this is who they’re buying from. The reality for farmers is very different, with two-thirds saying they feel under pressure from supermarket practices, according to the latest Riverford survey of farmers. So much so that 64 per cent of British fruit and vegetable farmers now report that their farm is at financial risk, an increase from 49 per cent last year. But, many are still reluctant to go on record to talk about it because they can’t risk losing their supermarket contracts. It would be a huge risk, especially as 95 per cent of our food is sold through just 10 retailers, meaning they hold all the cards.
The farmers who are not so reliant on supermarket contracts are less afraid to openly share their own bleak tales from the field: how a supermarket promised to buy lettuces at 16p a head and then reduced this to 6p at harvest time because they decided to put them on promotion and the farmer was expected to absorb that cost; the meetings where supermarkets would boast about the low price of their eggs – to the group of farmers they were underpaying; the organic oats that were rejected by an industrial processor because they were the ‘wrong colour’ and the farmer forced to pay for the haulage trucks to return them, adding insult to injury.
What is farmwashing?
It’s easy for supermarkets to use a British flag or a small red tractor or to make up a farm name to slap onto their packaging. These things immediately conjure up an image of a traditional British farm – bucolic, happy, healthy – even when the real picture is often so far removed from that as to be unrecognisable.
‘We have to ask ourselves why it is that supermarkets are making such a fuss about supporting British agriculture in their marketing,’ insists Guy. ‘They know perfectly well that buying their food from mega-farms all over the world is not actually what British customers want. But, it’s cheaper to spend the money on telling the lie. If people were really aware of what they were buying – and how it was produced – they would demand something different, but they’re denied that information.’
Fake farms
Farmwashing is exemplified by Tesco selling Nightingale Farms peppers and Rosedene Farms Gala apples, when neither of those ‘farms’ exist. A staggering 99 per cent of farmers surveyed think that fake farms pose a considerable risk to their livelihoods, impacting the long-term sustainability and viability of family-owned farms, devaluing farm produce by setting unrealistic price expectations and taking the market share of family- owned farms by deceiving customers into buying a fake over the real thing.
‘Farmwashing grinds my gears every single day,’ says Zoë Colville. ‘We produce our own meat but we don’t grow any fruit or vegetables, so I use supermarkets a lot. It feels like a kick in the teeth as a farmer and also as a shopper, so it’s a double whammy. The majority of people I know use supermarkets, that means the majority of people I know are being lied to. The supermarkets pull the wool over your eyes at every opportunity, down every single aisle, and it just feels like they’re taking the mick out of us all.’
Best of… British?
But a supermarket doesn’t only have to invent a farm to be farmwashing. As shoppers, we inadvertently help to do that job for them. The British consumer wants to support British farming, with two thirds of well-intentioned shoppers saying they actively look for the Union Jack on products in order to support British farmers. Walk into a British supermarket, and at first glance, you might assume it’s doing all it can to support British farmers. Union Jack logos, ‘Best of British’ and ‘Supporting British Farmers’ sing out from banners, signs and point-of-sale material, positioned above shelves filled with colourful, fresh produce. But look more closely at the ‘country of origin’ labels on the produce itself, and you’ll often find that this isn’t British fruit and veg at all – on a recent trip to the supermarket, we found produce from the Netherlands, Spain, Italy, Egypt and Morocco, all placed beneath ‘Best of British’ signage.
‘When we are shopping for food, we typically make a decision on a product within a couple of seconds,’ says Ben Andrews. ‘So to put the real information in the small print somewhere, while the surrounding marketing or packaging gives the impression of a different type of provenance, is just not good enough.’
This begs the question, where is the food coming from and why are supermarkets so secretive about it? The UK is heavily reliant on imports for its fresh produce. We produce less than a fifth of the fruit consumed domestically, and just over half of our vegetables. In fact, the UK has more land allocated to golf courses than to fruit and veg, with horticulture representing less than two per cent of England’s farmed land and production. This is declining year on year – but step into any supermarket and you’d think the British fruit and vegetable sector was thriving.
Government farming data gives a good indication of the real impact of supermarket buying policies. Since 2005, we have lost one in four farms that are smaller than 100 hectares in England. Meanwhile, farms bigger than 200 hectares have increased by eight per cent over the same time period. As such, just 11 per cent of English farms now control 54 per cent of English farmland, according to DEFRA. ‘For me this is a really important issue,’ says Jimmy Doherty. ‘If we lose the small farms, we become reliant on a few large companies for our food, and I find that really frightening.’
Mega factory farms
Large corporations owning our food chain generally means intensification. When it comes to meat, an incredible 85 per cent of all farmed animals in the UK are now factory farmed, reports Compassion in World Farming (CIWF).
The number of applications for mega farms is increasing year-on-year at an alarming pace. In England alone, there are now a total of 1,325 applications, dating back to 2011 when there was just one. Last year there were 103 applications. The UK environmental agencies classify livestock farms as ‘intensive’ if they have capacity to house at least 2,000 pigs and/or 750 sows (the name for adult female pigs used for breeding) or 40,000 chickens. To put this into context, the Soil Association reports that intensive chicken farming alone has been growing at the rate of one million birds per month since 2014, with one billion meat chickens (broilers) reared for consumption in the UK each year, while The Humane League UK, a charity that aims to end the abuse of animals reared for food, recently accused supermarkets of causing an ‘animal welfare crisis’.
There’s currently no definition for an intensive cattle farm, but the rise of ‘mega farms’ was uncovered this summer by the BBC, which reported that the number of larger-scale beef and dairy cattle farms in Britain has increased from 756 to 802 in just five years, now holding more than 915,000 cattle. The CIWF called this ‘deeply concerning’, as many of these cattle would be housed indoors all year round in no-graze systems. Yet, supermarket marketing typically shows cows grazing in a field, chickens foraging in a meadow and pigs rooting around on the land. Would we so readily buy that pork if the packaging clearly showed a photo of the concrete shed the pig was held and reared in?
We have to ask why it is that supermarkets are making such a fuss about supporting British agriculture in their marketing? They know that buying food from mega-farms all over the world is not actually what British customers want. Guy Singh-Watson
Why small farms matter
‘I care really deeply about British farming,’ says Guy. ‘It’s what I’ve done all my life, and what my neighbours and a lot of my schoolfriends did. I particularly love its contribution towards the social fabric of the countryside. I just find it so tragic that this reality is being lost and instead we’re left with the mendacious fantasy that’s portrayed in supermarket marketing.’
‘Big retailers often portray themselves as champions of small family farms in their marketing campaigns,’ says Will White, Sustainable Farming Campaign Co-ordinator at Sustain, an alliance of organisations and communities working together for a better system of food, farming and fishing. ‘However, in reality, farmers are being relentlessly squeezed. Research indicates that farmers frequently receive less than a penny of the profit on their produce, a shocking imbalance considering the immense effort and risk involved in its production.
These farms are the backbone of rural communities, custodians of our national heritage, and crucial for restoring nature and tackling climate change. Only strong regulation from Government can ensure farmers get a fair deal for the food they produce, enabling them to farm in a way that provides better outcomes for people and the planet – being kinder to nature, conserving biodiversity and regenerating the land in the process. This is an essential first step towards a broader transition to agroecology across more of the United Kingdom.’
The full value of what small farms contribute to the countryside isn’t always as easy to define in data, although the Landworkers Alliance, a UK-based union of farmers and growers that campaigns for better food and land-use systems, has attempted to do so. It reports that farms between one and 20 hectares in size are found to create 26 times more employment per hectare than larger, conventional farms. These smaller, typically family-run farms, have a wider diversity of crops and are more resilient to disease, which is especially important as the climate becomes more unpredictable. Swine flu, Irish potato famine and American stripe rust have all been linked to scale and/or lack of diversity on farms.
‘Ultimately, what will really matter is when there isn’t food on the shelves – and I expect to see that in my lifetime,’ states Guy. ‘The current system assumes that we will continue to be able to buy food from around the world and import chemicals to grow what little we do produce. I think that’s changing. We’ve already seen the impact when India stopped exporting certain varieties of rice last year and when the cost of artificial fertiliser went through the roof following the Ukraine war. So we put ourselves in a very, very weak position as a country that’s relying on monoculture and that imports a hell of a lot of our food.’
Genuine customer choice
A common argument is that supermarkets are simply giving customers what they want – but farmwashing means customers aren’t being given the full facts or opportunity to make informed choices. ‘Supermarkets need to be held accountable: the light needs to be shone on this because it’s a huge issue,’ insists Zoë.
Unless we’re willing to be more truthful about where our food is coming from, the forecast looks bleak for the future of British food. A landscape once filled with orchards, market gardens and family farms rapidly replaced by intensive production units and mega-farms. It’s why these farmers are taking action to demand more honesty from supermarkets. It’s why we should, too.
Visit stopfarmwashing.co.uk to uncover more.
This Wicked Leeks article features in the Autumn 2024 issue of Veg&Table magazine by Riverford, which can be ordered here.
It’s not just farm washing.
Fossil fuel companies wash them selves with greenwashing (renewable energy slogans, green signs etc etc).
Food companies market their food as healthy, low fat etc when it’s not.
Car manufacturers – VW cheated emissions tests to show low emission cars (helped on by German gov). Car companies selling electric cars as a solution to transport emissions – totally false – but aided by governments.
There are so many examples. It’s a facet of the political and economic system. It is by choice of the neoliberal order to continue wealth accumulation.
The Brexit story shows the pro British rhetoric by UK politicians but a new cuctoms system that they setup that effectively discriminates against UK farmers and small business. This shows the ineptitude of our political class which is easily out witted or bought by corporate strategy and lobbying.
Good to read, but what a sad state. I wish you well in getting this out to so many. I stand with you on this
So glad you are doing this. I was in a Sainsburys in Kent earlier this year. The pears had a huge sign above them declaiming ‘British Pears’ in huge letters, then ‘when in season’ in the tiniest font imaginable. The pears were from Paraguay! I guess the tiny addendum means they aren’t breaking trading standards?!
I will do all I can to support.