Suffolk fruit farm speaks out as supermarkets warned farmers are 'struggling to survive'

Farming and food leaders have sent an open letter to the 'big six' supermarkets urging them to treat suppliers more fairly amid warnings British agriculture is "on its knees".

The letter, sent to the chief executives of Tesco, Sainsbury's, Asda, Morrisons, Aldi and Lidl, claims that the supermarkets' buying practices are "all too often imbalanced, short term and wasteful" and leaving farmers "struggling to survive".

We've been speaking to High House Fruit Farm on the Suffolk coast which is owned by Piers Pool and his wife.

They've been running the fruit farm for 23 years and tell us farmers need to be treated more fairly.

Piers said: "Financially it's harder now to make ends meet than it ever has been. Our costs over the last year have gone up enormously. I would think most costs have gone up between 10 and 20 percent. It's a difficult one to swallow."

"Unless supermarkets start to pay farmers a reasonable, working price for what they produce then we are going to end up with less and less home grown food."

Its more than 100 signatories include industry bodies Sustain and The Soil Association, chefs Rick Stein and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, conservationist Ray Mears and TV presenters Julia Bradbury and Jimmy Doherty.

It reads: "Farmers are denied commitment or security - with whole crops rejected at the last minute in favour of cheaper options elsewhere, or just because supermarkets change their mind.

"Good food ends up rotting in the field. Farmers are left without payment for their crops. And without a stable, reliable income, they are struggling to survive.

"These practices threaten the livelihoods of hard-working farmers, and jeopardise the availability of fresh, healthy, and locally-grown food for shoppers. If farms continue to close, the British produce that customers know and love risks disappearing from your shelves altogether."

One potato farmer said: "I've not grown for the major supermarkets for five years, and I would never go back. It cost me £25,000 to grow the crop - they just said 'We don't want them now' - that was it, 60 metric tonnes of potatoes wasted."

The farmer added: "There is no way I would grow for the supermarkets again. They'll squash you to keep the prices down. You just don't know how much to expect in terms of income, and at times you end up taking huge financial hits and wasting so much food. We need a fairer, shorter, and more transparent food chain."

The letter is part of the Get Fair About Farming campaign launched by the Riverford Organic vegetable box firm, which is calling for reform of the grocery supply code of practice to better protect farmers, and sets out 'charter principles' for supermarkets, urging them to "pay what you agreed to pay, buy what you committed to buy, agree on fair specifications, commit for the long term and pay on time".

Andrew Opie, the British Retail Consortium's director of food and sustainability, said: "Food retailers source, and will continue to source, the vast majority of their food from the UK, and work hard to pay a sustainable price to farmers.

"Retailers value their relationships with British farmers and are supporting them by paying more for their produce. However, retailers are also facing many additional costs and the recent Competition and Markets Authority report shows that they are working hard to absorb these in order to limit price increases for their customers. As a result, operating profit margins have fallen to less than 2p in every pound of sales."

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