Rural Theology Association

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2002 Conference/AGM

Annual General Meeting
Saturday 26th October
at the Old Rectory, Cantax Hill, Lacock, Chippenham

Left: the RTA President Professor Leslie Francis at the AGM. The picture also shows others attending - Capt David Swales (also of CRUC) in conversation with Jenny Carpenter of the Arthur Rank Centre.

Jane Hald, the RTA chairman spoke of the Association's coming of age after 21 years. She mentioned plans for a new electronic group. The conference in November 2001 was a recent highlight (see report on this website). We had much in common with those in rural contexts around the world and could develop links with them: our journal was a unique resource complementing the more popular Country Way.

This was also an occasion to thank the retiring secretary Geoff Platt , and journal editor John Whitehead for all that they had done for the Association over the years.

The other existing Executive members were re-elected with Stephen Cope taking on the Secretary's role and Peter Lawrence relieving Stephen of the Treasurer's post.

Right: The new RTA display board on view at the AGM
 

Talk: The Future of Rural Organisations

Given by Dudley Coates before formal AGM business at the 2002 RTA Annual Meeting on 26 October

Jane gave me the chance to change my title a few weeks ago, but I chose to stick with it.

Mainly because it is a live issue. The Countryside Alliance (CA) amongst others is arguing for some sort of Rural Council – seen as I understand it as representing the true interests of rural people. They have called a conference at Stoneleigh on 25 November.

Declarations of interest grew up in semi-urban Essex and recruited by MAFF in 1968 for my knowledge of European integration (special subject at university) rather than knowledge of farming. But spent 32 years at MAFF and, since marrying Jean spent most of my life living in rural areas. Now a member of a Village Plan Steering Group.

Stocktake of existing rural organisations

First, I want to offer something of a map of the plethora of organisations with an interest in rural issues which now exist.

Economic interest groups (farming):

• NFU – not always united – e.g. horn v corn. Also specialist groupings like National Sheep Association or British Egg Industry Council etc); also Small and Family Farmers Association. And Tenant Farmers Assocaition
• Country Land and Business Association (CLA)
• But what about other rural businesses? Some are members of Chambers of Commerce but they have no strong rural agenda
• Supply industry organisations (UKASTA, Crop Protection Association)
• TGWU (rural section)
• Do Farmers for Action belong here too?

Economic interest groups (food)

• Supermarkets + Institute of Grocery Distribution
• Village shops – VIRSA
• Regional food groupings
• Organic bodies – especially Soil Association – could be listed here or under environment or under consumers!

Consumer bodies:

• NCC and Consumers Association
• Reminded afterwards that I should have mentioned WI here!

Environmental groups:

• National Trust – very large landowner with strong conservation stress
• Biodiversity interests (RSPB + Wildlife Trusts + specialist groups such as Butterfly Conservation, Plantlife, Federation of Badger Groups, etc)
• CPRE and its county operations
• All above linked in Wildlife and Countryside Link
• FWAG, LEAF
• Not to mention FoE and Greenpeace
• Movement of staff around these organisations (Fiona Reynolds CPRE-NT, Jim Dixon EN-RSPB-DEFRA)

Others:

• ACRE + Rural Community Councils
• Countryside Alliance (ex BFSS)

Government bodies:

• DEFRA including RDS + RPA
• CA, English Nature, Environment Agency
• Rural Affairs Forum (national and regional)
• Government Offices for the Regions
• HSE, Inland Revenue, Customs (VAT)
• Office of the Deputy PM (planning, housing local government), DfES
• Local government (DoA inspectors, EHOs)
• Housing Corporation and many others

Do we need a new organisation?

First question is what is any new organisation for?

• Is it possible to co-ordinate all these disparate interests?
• And what about the interests now underrepresented?

Second, can we draw sensible line around what is truly rural?

• Does rural consist of those who think themselves rural (even if they live in towns) or of people living in small communities (whether with urban or rural roots)?
• Does the incomer count for less than the older resident?
• How should economic interests be balanced against society’s wishes? – even medieval food legislation covered watering of milk and adulteration of bread.
• On what issues should the landowner/farmer interests take precedence over other interests? On animal welfare on farms, should anything be allowed however cruel? Where should society draw the line?
• More widely was it right to ban cock fighting and badger baiting; if so, why not hunting too?

This leads me naturally on to a brief discussion of the CA and the March and all that.

• I agree with all of the CA’s 10 points but I did not march and still would not have marched even had the 10 points been publicised in advance.
• CA is the enlarged BFSS. Understand that it is MPs not rural interests which have put hunting on agenda but it really is nothing like as important as CA makes it.
• ‘Listen to us’ was gravely mistaken slogan; what about the rural minority listening to the urban majority sometimes about issues like the environment and animal welfare?

There is a real failure of many rural people – not just CA - to grasp how their message sounds to many in our society. FMD showed that there is a strong willingness to sympathise with people in real trouble. But farming and rural interests do not help themselves when they are seen as mainly ‘toffs’ seeking to maintain their privileges and their income from the taxpayer in EU farm subsidies. In my view the biggest tactical mistake of CA over the September march was to encourage/allow public schools to send pupils on the March; when people heard that Eton and Harrow (and Milton Abbey) boys would be marching, many will have concluded that there was no real hardship in rural communities – and who can blame them?

Future of rural organisations

Doubt if any new organisation is needed or would work. But all organisations do need to think harder about the way in which they express their views if they want politicians and general public to listen. Just saying ‘listen to us’ will not work. And the problems of rural communities will not go away even if a new super-organisation did come into being and even if it actually worked. Some messages might be clearer but others would probably be blunted by any super-organisation.

Nor is it good enough to say – as I often hear – that only people with real knowledge of farming should decide about farming. It is certainly true that MAFF/DEFRA has lost too much expertise in staff cuts over successive Governments (e.g. vets). And of course people should be properly trained and qualified for the jobs they do. But do we expect the clerk who handles our gas bill to know how to repair a boiler? And do we say that only experts should decide on the future of the steel or motor industries? In fact it is the market which has decided that the steel industries will decline because there is less and less demand for its products. Farmers too produce a product and their future in the end depends on what consumers will buy.

I do think that some of the terms of trade which farmers face are unfair. I have considerable sympathy with the critics of supermarket monopoly power. But supermarkets are convenient places to shop – even for many farmers - and will not go away. So why not more nagging to make sure that produce is properly sourced – often difficult to find to British let alone, local produce in British supermarkets. Example of French supermarkets shows that it can be done differently providing that there is enough consumer demand. But why should the consumer in Dagenham or Longbridge buy British food when all too often she sees farmers driving around in imported vehicles?

Finally, I know all about the claims about red tape – and some of it is true and there is more which could be done, given a will, at least to co-ordinate enforcement. But farmers and other rural people really do need to wake up to some of the changes which have affected wider society in the last 50 years. Red tape is a universal phenomenon; farmers have been protected from much of it for longer than many other sectors. Fierce environmental legislation has been applied to most polluters – so that now the biggest polluter of water is farming and farmers will have to learn to clean up their act as other industries already have.

Conclusion

Lots of things I have not mentioned. But I want to finish with the church which clearly is of particular interest to this audience.

Believe that church has an important role in all this. Rural Britain is God’s good creation as adapted by generations of farmers and landowners – for good or ill. Reconciliation and dialogue are at the heart of the Christian message. Should support and encourage real dialogue – between rural interests and consumers and environmentalists and politicians. When such dialogue happens many good things do happen. Examples include much of what FWAG and LEAF do, many farmers opening up to the public in some form (open days, farmers markers, etc), the work of the WFU in nagging consumers and supermarkets, an increasing (though still inadequate) recognition of the importance of education in these issues and so on.

Second, I want to mention the point which I sometimes hear about the land as a spiritual resource. Indeed I believe that Richard Burge of the CA has used such language recently. My problem with that sort of language is that it sits ill with the fact that land is also private property – whether the owner is the National Trust or the Church Commissioners. Landowners however benevolent remain landowners and usually insist on their right to use their property and defend their large exemptions from local taxation and planning law. Logically if land is a spiritual resource, then it cannot also be purely private property.

Finally, the church has an important pastoral and charitable role. Still – mainly in the form of the Church of England – has a branch in a every community. In my view Church fulfilled this role well during FMD and still is doing so through the Addington Fund in its new housing mode.

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