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Infrastructure
Enabling better infrastructure, in particular, IT
Broadband access (and probably more particularly, speed) can provide a stimulant to business improvement by making it easier to access information and run the farm business more efficiently. The Government’s objectives under the Digital Britain programme will help to achieve these needs. A further infrastructure issue relates to training resources and whether these are sufficient to ensure the skills base necessary for a competitive farming sector.
Infrastructure has to support structure, and that is sadly lacking in land use policy at the moment. There are also more important things than IT. We also need a low carbon distribution system and far less wasteful ways of managing water use, producing , preparing and retailing food to the final consumer. IT of course has an important part to play but it will only enable the efficient working of ‘real’ activity, not replace it.
Just to agree with the previous writer, IT is important, but for agriculture it is often driven by the need to communicate with government not with suppliers or customers.
‘Real’ infrastructure is also vitally important. We need decent rural roads, bridges that are wide enough to take modern agricultural machinery (or in the case of North and West Cumbria, any bridges at all).
It will be interesting to watch developments in Cumbria and see how fast vitally needed bridges are put in place. This will give us a good idea of how firm governments’ commitment to ‘infrastructure’ actually is
Jim
We acknowledge that broadband access is an issue in some areas and the potential benefits it offers to businesses. Whilst use amongst farmers is increasing, technology limits access in some rural areas. This can limit diversification opportunities (e.g. office and workshop space for small businesses) and also impact on existing farm businesses. This constraint needs to be aligned with the fact that Government is increasingly heading online. For example, the compulsory switch to online filing of VAT returns online from April 2010 for businesses with turnover greater than £100,000 will also impact many farmers. Many dairy and arable farms face the prospect of online filing. In the specialist sectors (such as poultry, pigs and horticulture), a high proportion of farmers face this compulsory switch regardless of their access to broadband.
In subsequent work, this section should be expanded. Exploring the infrastructure of the food manufacturing sector would be a priority. A consideration of the planning environment would also be warranted and there is a need to align policy at both the national and local level with the challenges agriculture faces. Continued capital investment at farm level and a desire for English agriculture to produce more will all impact on the built infrastructure in rural areas, yet the draft Planning for Prosperous Economies document by DCLG failed to consider farming.