YouSaid · the spoken record

Minette Batters

lines on the record: 58
first: 2023-10-15
most recent: 2023-10-15
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“So, I have been elected into this role for my third term. I had to get 75% of the vote. So the next president of the NFU will be elected into that role. But whoever the next president is, you know, the NFU is an extraordinary dynamic, diverse organization. And, you know, it's been around for well over 100 years. I'm very confident it will be around in another hundred years and doing what it does.”
2023-10-15 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 40. Minette Batters: The Most Powerful Farmer in Britain · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Everything I can to avoid that. Success will be when it's not newsworthy to be a woman. That is what I want my legacy to be.”
2023-10-15 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 40. Minette Batters: The Most Powerful Farmer in Britain · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I never set out to have a role in the NFU. My passion was to farm. And so I've been effectively 10 years not being able to farm in a way that I would have been. So I really look forward to going back to the farm, to continuing to build my business. There are things that I desperately want to get over the line in the next five years. And, you know, when I came into this role, it was so frustrating for it all to be about the first woman. As a woman, all you want to be seen as the best person to do that job. So my focus, and probably what matters more to me than anything else, is I want people at the end of my tenure to think, you know, she was a woman, but she did as good a job as any of the men. And it'll be great to have another woman. The thought of ever dropping a ball or ever doing anything wrong and people sang, oh, don't you remember that time when we had a woman leading the NFU? I mean, that for me, I will do and have done.”
2023-10-15 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 40. Minette Batters: The Most Powerful Farmer in Britain · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Know they are still planting, harvesting, doing everything they can to keep farming in a situation that the rest of us cannot even begin to contemplate. So what I've heard from Maria really makes the hair zone back of neck stand up. It makes me feel enormously grateful to be here.”
2023-10-15 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 40. Minette Batters: The Most Powerful Farmer in Britain · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's hard to sort of put into words how challenging the situation is. So, Maria Dudak, who's the Ukrainian Agrarian Forum director, I've had a lot of conversations with from day one. We helped bring Maria and her sons over to have a holiday in Wales, as she said, to get them out of a war zone. you know, all the thoughts and the you can't imagine what it's like when you are living effectively in shelters. And she's still doing her job as a director. So everybody's feeling the impact of Russia invading Ukraine and what it's done to cost inflation of farm inputs and food inflation. But when you hear firsthand from what these farmers are facing, they're facing farms that have been targeted. by the Russians, cows that are literally burnt alive feels that our mined and they are continually as a nation working through, working through, working through.”
2023-10-15 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 40. Minette Batters: The Most Powerful Farmer in Britain · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Think that's absolutely right, and I've been working with an amazing couple, Andy and Linda Eden, whose son Len took his own life, aged 22. And Andy talks about achieving positive mental health all the time. And so our language really needs to learn from people that have been through what the Edens have been through and they're just driven a tractor right across the country. And hearing them talk about their son, but they continually say don't talk about mental health negatively, what we're all striving for is positive mental health.”
2023-10-15 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 40. Minette Batters: The Most Powerful Farmer in Britain · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, I think it's isolated. Certainly at the moment, huge pressure because there's been such lack of plan and there's been such differentiation effectively between different leaders. So lack of plan hasn't helped. Uncertainty is the last thing farmers want. And you are working in a very isolated and lowly environment often. So it is a big issue and we need to do much more to get help into rural areas. You know, we are always talking about it's okay not to be okay and to speak up. But what then? What's the next steps? How can we provide the help that is needed? And we've got great charities, the farm FCN, the farm crisis network does a huge amount RABI and others to help in this area, but there's much more we can do.”
2023-10-15 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 40. Minette Batters: The Most Powerful Farmer in Britain · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Absolutely. I mean, not just small businesses, but farming is long term. So you are planning for a long term. You're obviously planning often for the next generation to be coming into that business, whether you're a tenant or a landowner”
2023-10-15 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 40. Minette Batters: The Most Powerful Farmer in Britain · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think if you imagine you've Are, if I look at my own business, you are on call. We're a livestock business. You are on call 24 7.”
2023-10-15 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 40. Minette Batters: The Most Powerful Farmer in Britain · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, I think probably my saddest and lowest moments in this job are hearing stories effectively from our members about men and women that have committed suicide. It is a lonely job. It is an isolated job. And it is a stressful job.”
2023-10-15 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 40. Minette Batters: The Most Powerful Farmer in Britain · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Amount of work on our manifesto, and then we will be trying to get it off. And our conference next February, which will be my last, there'll be a hustings between all parties, and that will be, you know, we'll have well over 1,000 members in the ICC. That will be my members' chance to really challenge politicians about what their plan is.”
2023-10-15 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 40. Minette Batters: The Most Powerful Farmer in Britain · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think they're really exciting thing now is that everybody is recognizing that the rural vote matters, the farming vote matters and the people who associated to rural constituencies, they are feeling hard done by. They are feeling left out of a sort of a metropolitan urban policy portfolio, if you like. So I think it's an exciting time in that the rural vote matters. It will be competitive in the run-up to the next election. So we are the moment producing our own manifesto. Now, you know, I don't run a dictatorship, so this isn't and can't be my manifesto. It will be literally across all land areas, across all sectors. We will bring that manifesto together. We are and always do engaging with labor, with lib dems, with the Green Party, and really trying to tick the boxes off. Will you sign up to this? You know, we've got huge implications with trade, with access to people, with the future policy. So we will have done and are doing a huge...”
2023-10-15 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 40. Minette Batters: The Most Powerful Farmer in Britain · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Target, but he was empathetic, the audience liked him. What is lacking with labour at the moment is policy. We need to see more policy, we need to see a plan, a proposal that is meaningful. These are businesses that I run.”
2023-10-15 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 40. Minette Batters: The Most Powerful Farmer in Britain · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The extraordinary thing was that his announcement was actually one of Rishi Sunak's policy proposals when he was on the campaign trail. So he talked about 50% in public procurement. That's our hospitals, schools, prisons, military. 50% of that being British. And that was what Keir Starmer announced because conservatives have failed to announce it. So that seemed quite odd, but it's appreciated. We still don't have those things that Roshisunak committed to, and I think knowing the man that he is, he will have gone into it with a lot of thought, a lot of detail behind it. So he committed to 50% of British. Don't forget, this is not new news for the London Olympics. We were 100% British. I mean, that's what a lot of countries do. And it's an important marketplace. So £4 billion worth of marketplace. And Keir Starmer announced it because the Conservatives hadn't. As I say, I'd like to see Keir go further.”
2023-10-15 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 40. Minette Batters: The Most Powerful Farmer in Britain · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No comment. We're apolitical, and we have to work with everyone and enjoy it too. But, you know, it's about the plan. The plan has been what's missing. And we need a plan and a strategy. And that has to start with saying food matters. And we have to treat environment and food production as two sides of the same coin, not separate them. They're continually being separated. We've got to have both. That's what I'd like to see labor do.”
2023-10-15 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 40. Minette Batters: The Most Powerful Farmer in Britain · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, obviously, it's to be appreciated and applauded that the Lib Dems have come out and offered more money. I think, though, when you're not in power, offering more money is quite easy to do.”
2023-10-15 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 40. Minette Batters: The Most Powerful Farmer in Britain · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So the big thing that is missing is we've legislated targets for the environment clean water, tree planting, taking land out of production, water quality, all really important things. And I'm absolutely fully in favour of what's happening. But we've got targets on house building. Labour's got targets on house building. It's got targets on green energy. What we don't have a target for is food production. And so the first thing I would like to see them do is say, look, producing food matters, feeding the people of this country matters. We are going to set a self-sufficiency target and we are going to make sure that we stick to that. And we're not going to be producing pineapples and lemons here, but there are many things that we should be producing here. If they do that, then we need a comprehensive food strategy that delivers all of that.”
2023-10-15 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 40. Minette Batters: The Most Powerful Farmer in Britain · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“What happened in that speech? What was it that was upsetting for members? I think the challenge was that we'd face this extraordinary situation with eggs. So it was front page news. And that day we'd faced literally every newspaper out there was talking about salad shortages and rationing of salads. So Asda was the first one to say you can only have two bags of lettuce effectively and six tomatoes. And so we were facing rationing of salads and there was no nod to any of that at all. And actually in the Q&A I challenged her on market failure in the egg sector and said, what were they going to do about it? Because within the agricultural act, there are powers given to the UK government to deal with these issues. And she said, well, she didn't see it was market failure. And I said, well, there's a billion less eggs. Clearly, it's market failure. And I've got members that are going out of business because they are not getting a return back to the farm gate for what is costing them. So it was.”
2023-10-15 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 40. Minette Batters: The Most Powerful Farmer in Britain · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Was a weird time. I met with her two days later and she said, could I come and have a drink and a chat and go through things? And that was good. And that settled things down. But it did feel a very odd time.”
2023-10-15 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 40. Minette Batters: The Most Powerful Farmer in Britain · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's unaffordable in the first instance. So it's very costly. And I think there are huge concerns with the health implications of things that have been modified that we are not genetically keeping up with. So our food system has changed so much in the last 50 years. And as we go to the next level of synthetic meats, stem cell technology that is producing these synthetic meats, this is our bodies. There is nothing more important that we do than feed ourselves and what we eat is what we are. And it just appalls me that the lack of work that has gone into, what is this going to do to our bodies? We face huge challenges now with type 2 diabetes, with cancer, a lot of it linked to highly processed food and the fact that we are eating too much of it. So there are big health implications here. And it's all about taking food seriously and really.”
2023-10-15 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 40. Minette Batters: The Most Powerful Farmer in Britain · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Of a city using heat pumps and not reliant on gas, we could be producing all of the nation's peppers, all of the tomatoes, pretty much all year round. Why would we not want to do that?”
2023-10-15 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 40. Minette Batters: The Most Powerful Farmer in Britain · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But many people listening to this will have faced the rationing of eggs. We had a billion less eggs produced last year compared to 2019. And yet the British medical advice is, if you're elderly, if you're young, if you're pregnant, eat British lion mark eggs. And yet we've been importing eggs from Italy. So we need to get our egg numbers back up salad shortages. I mean, everybody remembers all the talk of, you know, Dres coffee saying, well, have a turnip and eats seasonally and don't have a tomato. But people want rightly so to be able to buy what they want when they want. And we can produce a lot more of that here. So that's the key thing. What we're good at, you know, it isn't just about proteins. The real challenge right now is being so reliant on Spain to produce all of our salads, so reliant on Morocco. A weather event in Morocco, none of the salad got here. We should be producing it here. And I've visited at Glasshouse not that long ago. Totally sustainable pulling hot water.”
2023-10-15 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 40. Minette Batters: The Most Powerful Farmer in Britain · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So here in the UK, people's diet will be what people's diet is. The medical advice right now is meat and dairy is a really important part of a healthy balanced diet. But none of us, whatever age we are, are eating enough fruit, vegetables and pulses. So it's absolutely the case that meat and dairy is part of a healthy balanced diet. And here in the UK, when we don't have feedlot systems, we're not feeding mountains of grain to our animals. We should be exporting what we're not consuming. And that's a really, really important because, you know, if we put in reduction targets here, don't forget that was another focus when Henry Dimbleby was leading the food strategy, you know, was about reduction targets. We were absolutely saying, look, we can get better here. We can be climate smart agriculture, but we mustn't restrict what we're doing here. We can do it better, but let's export to other countries that don't have the luxury of the maritime climate that we do.”
2023-10-15 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 40. Minette Batters: The Most Powerful Farmer in Britain · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Take it, I did, but of course it ended and things changed, and actually it was a huge credit to everybody that food supply did come back on track, distribution did work, and a united effort from farm to fork to feed the nation. You know, we were, as farmers, we were the key workers, we were never the NHS, but we were feeding the nation. And we did together, I think, extraordinary things. And for a time, it brought people so much closer and government so much closer to the importance of food. But these things never last long. And that lesson mustn't be forgotten.”
2023-10-15 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 40. Minette Batters: The Most Powerful Farmer in Britain · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Was in there for a long time. But of course, nobody saw this coming, and it was pretty scary. And I think there were many in government, and I certainly had some messages from some of them basically saying you can have whatever you want.”
2023-10-15 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 40. Minette Batters: The Most Powerful Farmer in Britain · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So there was a moment. I'd just been elected into my second term, and we went into lockdown. So we'd had our elections at the end of February, went into lockdown in March. And I think there was absolute panic across government that supply chains were going to grind to a standstill. This is 70 million people very nearly on an island pretty reliant on imported food from Europe. And when it looked like food supply chains were going to break down and we weren't going to be able to get food in here. And indeed, you know, it wasn't just panic buying of loo roles. People were panic buying many things. So we were running out of flour. We were running out of milk. So the early days were tumultuous and we were on a war footing. Effectively, we were working very closely with Defra colleagues, of course, a big lack, I think, of commercial experience in departments. We obviously worked as members of the EU. Who's in charge of”
2023-10-15 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 40. Minette Batters: The Most Powerful Farmer in Britain · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It was interesting, wasn't it? The royal visit to France and the reception that he got. I mean, I do think he's been an extraordinary leader in this area because he was talking about it long before it was trendy and fashionable and actually faced a lot of ridicule. I've been to Highgrove. I've seen And he has never deviated from that path. And so, of course, when he talks now, it is with total sincerity, but not only sincerity, it is with complete knowledge of what he's talking about. And I think that is what now is putting him in such a good place as a leader in this area, because not only has he believed it for his entire life, he has acted on his beliefs and delivered on his own land.”
2023-10-15 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 40. Minette Batters: The Most Powerful Farmer in Britain · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So it was strange, but what we want to happen is the right policies, the right incentives in place. So we can get to net zero. So we are not taxing people. And this is absolutely within the art of the doable. And that is what we've been working on, the policy solution for how we achieve it.”
2023-10-15 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 40. Minette Batters: The Most Powerful Farmer in Britain · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Just didn't quite get because we hadn't heard about a meat tax. And you hadn't heard you were going to get the head of the editor.”
2023-10-15 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 40. Minette Batters: The Most Powerful Farmer in Britain · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“There was a lot of misunderstanding for me anyway, and how it was presented, so that was talk of, well, we're not going to be having a meat tax. Well, I hadn't realized that they were going to be having a meat tax. So there were things like that that I did.”
2023-10-15 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 40. Minette Batters: The Most Powerful Farmer in Britain · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's producing. Then you've got nature based solutions. So that is definitely hedges, trees locking down, pulling back more carbon into the ground. And then you've got renewable energy effectively. And to a certain extent, the bioeconomy, I've got members who got biorefineries, so they are tomato businesses making all of the packaging out of the tomato plant. Hugely exciting stuff. So this is an exciting time, not just with what we eat, but for green energy, for fibers. And it can happen.”
2023-10-15 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 40. Minette Batters: The Most Powerful Farmer in Britain · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, a lot of it is focused on those sort of jargon words that you started off with efficiencies, productivity, I would say it's climate smart farming. It is about decreasing your food production footprint, but it's about producing more on the back of it. So really focusing on how do we tread lighter with our food production. You've got in livestock now, you've got probiotics, you've got feed additives, you've got different breeding genetics, shorter finishing times, all of those lessen the footprint. And indeed, every cow in the world was as efficient as one in the UK, half the number of cows. So we're leading already with our emissions. And don't forget, farming here is very much part of the natural carbon cycle, grazing grass that we can't eat, producing a high quality grass-based protein that is really good for the soil and really good for us with the high quality meat and dairy.”
2023-10-15 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 40. Minette Batters: The Most Powerful Farmer in Britain · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So we've absolutely introduced the steps. There are basically three approaches for us. We're working with a farmer panel. Now you easily get farmers across all commodities, across all land areas to come together, but we are benchmarking everything that that farmer panel is working on with the scientific and academic community.”
2023-10-15 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 40. Minette Batters: The Most Powerful Farmer in Britain · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“World and how we do get to carbon neutral food production. And we've got to do that. We can't do that without farmers. We can't do it here and we can't do it anywhere.”
2023-10-15 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 40. Minette Batters: The Most Powerful Farmer in Britain · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I don't think George Mombio is a fair contributor for the environmental NGOs. I mean, George Mombio is an animal rights activist, so he is wholly opposed to eating meat. And that's fine. That's his opinion, but he wants our food produced in factories. And I think most people out there, indeed, there's a huge amount of peer-reviewed science that even looking at the NASA work, you know, our diet really matters and the nutritional benefit of food that's grown in soil, meat and dairy is part of a healthy balanced diet is absolutely critical. And that shapes the countryside that we have, the iconic areas of where you're from has literally been shaped for millennia by farmers and farming and hefted flocks. So I think when we committed to net zero, this is a really exciting opportunity for a UK government to lead.”
2023-10-15 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 40. Minette Batters: The Most Powerful Farmer in Britain · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's very scary, especially when you rip up all the old rule books and you haven't written a new rulebook as to what this Everything. And we've had, you'd look back to the repeal of the corn laws and everything that's happened in between that era and now, and it has been continual embracement and abandonment of whether food production matters. You know, the 1947 Agricultural Act, it was actually a Labour government that said, we cannot face starvation and rationing again. We are going to produce much more of our food here. We are at that moment in time now, right now, whereby we've legislated targets on the environment and we are saying we have to do the same on food production. Avrashi Sinac committed to that on the leadership campaign trail. It still hasn't happened. It really does need to happen.”
2023-10-15 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 40. Minette Batters: The Most Powerful Farmer in Britain · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“As I say, it's not all done yet. I mean, this is the thing. And I mean, if I just briefly look at the difference between the administrations, you know, Liz Truss literally would have completely liberalized. So the CPTPP, the Trans-Pacific Deal, beef as an example, they were going to open negotiations at 100,000 tons. That would have been a fully liberalized deal with Canada. And we would talk about Australia, but that would have done damage instantaneously. The deal that under Rishi Sunak's leadership, and he's keen to prove and show, and in many cases he has done, put in writing, that we will not now, not ever be importing hormone-treated beef or chlorine washed chicken. Now, if someone had told me that in 2020, I would have thought it the biggest win we'd ever had. The deal with the Trans-Pacific countries is now 13,000 tons on beef. So you can see the differences had we continued with the trust government, we would have liberalized totally with those.”
2023-10-15 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 40. Minette Batters: The Most Powerful Farmer in Britain · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Manifesto commitment in 2019 made it very clear that Britain's farmers would not be casualties in trade deals. We always knew an agriculture always is the first chapter to be discussed in any trade deal. And it is always the last chapter to be agreed. We're a service-based economy. We always knew that agriculture was going to be the pawn in these deals and it's played out in real time.”
2023-10-15 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 40. Minette Batters: The Most Powerful Farmer in Britain · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, he wanted to shake hands the next day, so he did capitulate. So I have always felt and always will feel very angry that Liz Truss and Boris Johnson gave so much away we could have done a deal whereby Was in our interest, and it was in our farmer's interest and the people of this country's interest to do a deal that respected all of those things. And we didn't, we gave away”
2023-10-15 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 40. Minette Batters: The Most Powerful Farmer in Britain · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Any negotiator, you don't put a date in the diary. So, of course, the night before the G20, the discussions were taking place, there were the dying embers of that trade deal whereby they could have hung on to safeguards that would have made Australia have to work out its carcass balance, bring in frozen bone in, wouldn't be able to unbalance the carcass. All of that really matters. It's pretty dull policy stuff. But of course, Scott Morrison was able to say, look, if you're going to keep that stuff in, the deal's off, we won't be shaking hands tomorrow. So we had to capitulate.”
2023-10-15 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 40. Minette Batters: The Most Powerful Farmer in Britain · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You're right, they have a completely different system. They have massive feedlots, grain fed feedlots of 70, 100,000 animals in one area, you know, the average size of a beef suckler herd in this country is about 40 cows. It's incomparable. Where they went wrong was putting dates in the diary. So you remember Boris Johnson agreed to shake hands with Scott Morrison at the G20.”
2023-10-15 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 40. Minette Batters: The Most Powerful Farmer in Britain · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Wasn't a bad deal to do a deal with Australia and New Zealand. It was a bad deal to give everything in a way. So in 15 years' time, we will be fully liberalised. That was the bad deal.”
2023-10-15 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 40. Minette Batters: The Most Powerful Farmer in Britain · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You know, when you have a blank piece of paper saying life's going to be better to the boring old, well, you know, it's going to be really difficult and everybody else knowing the challenges that lie ahead, you can see why we got to 52, 48. I think we could have campaigned as hard as we liked. We could have thrown everything at it. And actually, I think it would have made things worse. So we have left, but I don't think that needs to be a deal breaker. What we've had to fight off and the worst thing, I think, that has happened is been this sort of double standards approach. All I'm interested in is fairness. And the deals that we have struck previously giving everything away to Australia and New Zealand, the potential of a US, UK free trade agreement, which would have imported hormone-treated beef.”
2023-10-15 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 40. Minette Batters: The Most Powerful Farmer in Britain · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It didn't need to be a disaster, and indeed it can still be put right. So I did, you're right, I did take a public remain position. But that was on the information that we had. So the information that we had was it's going to be the easiest trade deal in history, trade deal with the EU. There will be a lot more money because we won't be paying that money into the EU. And there will be a bonfire of regulation. So, if you are out there farming hard, working all hours of the day and night, those three things, what was quite appealing, wasn't it? There was no more information. You literally would have fitted it onto one side of A4. So on the information that we had, we took a decision and a position that it would be better and in our interest to remain in the EU. But it was purely based on the lack of information.”
2023-10-15 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 40. Minette Batters: The Most Powerful Farmer in Britain · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I describe it very similarly, really. I mean, they sort of fit into three camps, really, sort of boring technical government, you know, trying to do the right thing, but boring. Then you have the nationalists who are all about Brexit was pull up the jawbridge, make everything here. And then you have the liberalizers who it's made anywhere but here. So those three things do not go together at all. And we've almost seen that play out in real time.”
2023-10-15 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 40. Minette Batters: The Most Powerful Farmer in Britain · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, that's always a bit of a challenge, but it's about holding them to account, again, trying to be pragmatic, put solutions forward. But ultimately, and this is where we've had to work with the media a lot, holding them to account. And, you know, sometimes perhaps the opposition hasn't held them to account in a way that I would have liked, particularly on trade deals, our relationship with Europe. The implications of importing food that would be illegal to produce here. These are massive issues for the country. And we've had to challenge a lot through the media.”
2023-10-15 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 40. Minette Batters: The Most Powerful Farmer in Britain · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's been beyond extraordinary when I came in in 2014, David Cameron was Prime Minister. Referendum wasn't even really being talked about. In fact, the first day I was in office, we headed off to Brussels. For meetings with member states, then obviously we had the referendum. And even in the last year, I've worked with three different prime ministers, all of whom I can say they could have come from different parties. They have had different priorities. And so it's been hard work, if you like, trying to keep up with them. There's always a fine line, which I'm sure you're both sympathetic to, of remaining at the table, not annoying anybody too much that you get kicked out.”
2023-10-15 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 40. Minette Batters: The Most Powerful Farmer in Britain · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I hope, above all else, that I am living proof that you can get to the top of the NFU and lead the NFU, I am a tenant farmer. I don't own any land and I farm 300 acres. So I hope that's proof that anybody can lead the NFU. And I think the great strength of us is that we represent all sizes of business. We do represent some very big landowners, but our average member, our average member is below 500 acres. So our average member is ultimately a small farmer. And I think what the people love about this country and certainly what I love about the country is the diversity of farming operations right across the country. And the fact that even large operations are usually a family unit and small ones like mine and the pharmacy you're talking about in Cumbria, they're often very small grassland farms, but it's about representing.”
2023-10-15 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 40. Minette Batters: The Most Powerful Farmer in Britain · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Absolutely right. And I think there's a really fine line between representing and leading, it's actually really easy to represent. But what do you achieve? And so you've got to represent because you want to keep representing as many members as possible. And that ultimately is how you get to see prime ministers and have effect is having a lot of people behind you. But also, especially as there's been no playbook effectively for what has been happening in the last six years, leadership has been critical too. But that's a very fine tightrope to walk because, you know, if you lead and go too fast and you're not taking people with you. And as you say, we represent across all land areas or commodities from upland farming to lowland farming. And this is a massive time of change. So, yeah, it's not easy to get it right.”
2023-10-15 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 40. Minette Batters: The Most Powerful Farmer in Britain · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I'm often referred to as a general secretary, which is sort of amusing. We're not a trade union. We're a membership organisation. So we're a trade association and we're an organization that is led by farmers for farmers, but we're backed by technical expertise within our staff. So that's what makes us, I think, really powerful that we are working up policy wherever there is a problem. And it's that great strength of having farmer leadership, you know, the realities of understanding what our members are facing because you're doing it yourself. But having that technical expertise to really work on all those different areas, it's a great strength.”
2023-10-15 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 40. Minette Batters: The Most Powerful Farmer in Britain · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source