The National Farmers'
Union (NFU)
Profile
By
Corporate Watch UK
Completed July 2003
Conclusion
The National Farmers' Union of England and Wales has long enjoyed
access to the inner corridors of power, much more so than many other
unions. Its undemocratic structure has ensured that wealthy
establishment farmers have used this access to feather
their own nests. Times are changing and as their
privileged access to government is slipping and food
production is restructured globally by multinational agribusiness,
the NFU has either failed to understand or chosen not to understand
and deliberately obfuscated the real causes of the farming crisis.
This is leading the NFU to collaborate with rather than to condemn
the very agribusinesses, from supermarkets to agrochemicals companies,
that are exploiting farmers worldwide. Whilst seeming to
advocate that UK farmers should be globally competitive,
they continue to support subsidies for big farms i.e.
themselves. Meanwhile, their small and family farmer
members, whose system of farming is proven to be more
environmentally and socially beneficial, are going to the wall.
Hope lies in the new farming organisations who are genuinely
representative of farmers at the grassroots, and who are
attempting to educate farmers in the reality of the
farming crisis. Many of these organisations are calling
for the regulation of multinational agrifood corporations,
including the supermarkets, whose monopoly power is proving so
destructive to farmers, local communities and the
environment.