“There is the higher price of fertilizers and fuel, a shortage of workers and now regulatory changes,” laments the farmer, also vice-president of the sectoral union NFU.

The agricultural sector, like many others in the UK, is facing a global spike in energy costs, due in part to the post-pandemic economic recovery.

It has greatly worsened since the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which threatens the supply of hydrocarbons to Europe.

The conflict has also caused a surge in the price of fertilizers, of which Russia is a major producer.

Westons Farm, nestled in the pretty village of Itchingfield, has long used the dung of its cattle, poultry, pigs and sheep to fertilize its crops of carrots, pumpkins, spinach and wheat.

But the price of fertilizers in the United Kingdom has almost quadrupled in one year and the farm depends more and more on these animal wastes to feed its fields with nitrates.

Fertilizers were already in short supply after gas prices surged to historic highs this fall, which forced the country's main manufacturer, CF Fertilisers, into production shutdowns.

Labor shortages

Added to this are the shortages of agricultural workers, as the sector depends largely on foreign seasonal workers who have partly returned home with the pandemic and whose return to the United Kingdom is complicated by Brexit.

With the war in Ukraine, Ukrainian workers are also staying home to fight.

There were already half a million unfilled job openings in the sector in September, according to the NFU.

Worsening labor shortages, sparked by Brexit and exacerbated by Covid, are particularly acute in Britain's agricultural sector Daniel LEAL AFP/Archives

"The lack of labor means that crops could not be harvested and rot in the fields," laments Jack Ward, chief executive of the British Farmers' Association.

The organization representing the butchery (British Meat Packing Association) faces the same difficulties: "our main concern is the lack of workers to prepare the meat", he argued.

Thousands of pigs have already been slaughtered and incinerated because of a shortage of butchers at slaughterhouses: a vast food waste, says Andrew Ward, who grows wheat in Leadenham, central England.

"We have pig farmers who are going bankrupt but we are importing pork whose price has jumped 20% over the last six months (to meet demand) and the government is not doing anything," he criticizes. .

Birds and bees

At the same time, the deployment of the British aid program intended to replace European agricultural subsidies (Environmental Land Management Scheme or ELMS) upsets the financial balance of farms because it favors very different criteria, and in particular land maintenance and biodiversity more than production quotas.

"All they are interested in are the birds, the bees, the trees (...) but we cannot go green if our accounts are in the red", protests Andrew Ward.

The owner of Westons Farm, Dave Exwood, says farms like his have become more and more relying on animal slurry to grow crops and cut costs Daniel LEAL AFP/Archives

Since Brexit, Conservative Boris Johnson's government has signed free trade agreements with several countries, including Australia.

British farmers are concerned that their beef or lamb production is at a disadvantage compared to that of their often cheaper Australian rivals, saying they are not held to such strict health or environmental standards.

At Westons farm, the mood is gloomy in the face of this array of challenges: "I have never known farmers so scared of the future", concludes Mr Exwood.

© 2022 AFP