Departmental report : 2000 (MAFF) / Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the Forestry Commission ; presented to Parliament by the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

  • Great Britain. Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs
Date:
2000
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Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: Departmental report : 2000 (MAFF) / Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the Forestry Commission ; presented to Parliament by the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    — oe , Fy j prea, { a . ( fo / 4 j ‘\ ~~ \ /( — NICK’ BROWN | | 6 MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD This Report describes an exceptionally challenging year’s activity in my Department. Two issues above all stole the headlines. Many sectors of the farming industry faced real economic problems. The Government acted decisively to help them continue to play their role in our economy and our environment, by maintaining for another year the enhanced rate of Hill Livestock Compensatory Allowances, by reducing the impact of a range of charges on the livestock industry, and by introducing new support for marketing. The French refusal to follow their obligations on the import of British beef diverted attention from the very real success we had in securing recognition in the EU that the safety of our beef is at least the equal of any in the world. We are now working hard on the basis of this recognition to rebuild our markets overseas in the same way as they have been rebuilt at home. We are making tangible progress in reforming the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). We negotiated in the EU the right to switch funding progressively from production-linked support to environmental and rural development measures. This enabled us to announce in December a £1.6 billion rural development programme, involving £300 million of new Exchequer funding. In the long run, my vision # for farming involves a food chain that works & 6 M ie vision for with maximum efficiency to allow production, f Aim N g l NVO | Wierey es] ‘i OO d processing and distribution to be fully responsive to what consumers want. I have C n al M th al WO rKS with been involved in several initiatives in this area mM ax Mu mM effi C | en CY to al | OW already and these will continue. D 8) d uction ; D rocessin Q an d distribution to be fully The Food Standards Agency came into being