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Market Development April 2009
With the current economic climate still to settle down after the shocks of 2008 its a good man who knows what the future holds for us. The saving grace is that we are in the business of growing and providing food which will be the last commodity to suffer should the recession continue. I use the word suffer but that does not mean that food will remain cheap. The cost of food has been too cheap for some time in terms of what the grower has been compensated. The main profit in this sector seems to be made by the supermarket industry which has led to the demise of the village/corner shop which we used to see years ago. In other words the consumer has less choice on where to buy their goods.
Last year I spoke of food riots throughout the world because of rising prices due to the large amount of grain and oilseeds grown for bio fuel. Since the advent of the credit crunch things have changed but for the worse. The whole world economy has felt the backlash from what started in the USA. The total picture still tells me that we must continue every effort to maximise production. We filled the intervention stores in the eighties when the demand from the world was low but we have a moral right to make the most of all available land for food production. Set aside was a disaster and I hope we dont see that again - if only to prevent the industry from the bad PR it got.
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Cereals 2009
This years Cereals exhibition and show is to be held on 10th & 11th June 2009 at Vine Farm, Wendy, Nr Royston, Cambridgeshire. For more information www.cerealsevent.org.uk | 
