Farmers Against Farmwashing

British farming is on its knees. Multiple factors contributed, from climate change to ongoing uncertainty about government support. But the main issue is that farmers just cannot survive the prices, trading terms, and insecurity imposed on them by the Big Six supermarkets.

A year ago, we wrote to supermarkets as part of our #GetFairAboutFarming campaign, and explained that British farmers are on the brink. In response, they publicly promised to support farmers (one of them to the tune of 17 billion pounds). But behind the scenes, the crisis has worsened. 61% of farmers now fear they will go bust in the next 18 months – up from 49% last year.

The farms that do survive bear little resemblance to the idyll that shoppers are encouraged to imagine. Union Jacks on display in the fruit and veg aisles, meat claiming to offer ‘higher welfare standards’, and farm imagery on labels all imply to the time-poor that the food they are buying is from wholesome British family farms. The reality is that much of the produce is imported, animal welfare claims are often cynically worded, and ‘trusted farms’ are large US-style megafarms.

They are stealing the clothes of real farmers and not paying for them. This is farmwashing.

British shoppers want to support better farming. What gets in the way is the power and misleading advertising of the supermarkets, whose business model depends on keeping farmers and shoppers apart, and filling the void with a fantasy. This is not a success of the free market, efficiently delivering what consumers want; it is the market failure that 18th-century economist Adam Smith predicted would arise when one party has unbalanced power and control of information.

In any healthy food culture, there is a strong connection between the people growing the food and the people eating it. That connection has been the root of Riverford’s success for over 30 years. For Britain’s family farms to survive, they all need to be given the same opportunities we have enjoyed: to tell the stories behind their food, and receive a fair price that allows them to farm well, for consumers, animals, the soil, biodiversity, and the planet. That is why we are asking supermarkets to show some integrity, stop the farmwashing, and start offering real support for real British farms. Uncover more at stopfarmwashing.co.uk.

Guy Watson-Singh is founder and creator of RiverFord Farms – This newsletter was originally written and published online at Wicked Leeks magazine. You can sign up for a weekly edition of Wicked Leeks for free here.