The Country 12/05/26: Farmer Tom Martin talks to Jamie Mackay

We ask our UK farming correspondent if the British PM, Sir Keir Starmer, is on his way out? How is he faring with the fuel and fertiliser crisis combined with a brutal spring drought?

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
He is a UK farm and correspondent farmer Tom Martin
as a social media moniker. He's a huge influencer. And Tom,
you were telling me that you could be responsible for
the demise of Sakia Starmer single handedly.

Speaker 2 (00:15):
Definitely not a single handly, but I mean, obviously pressure
is mounting on Cerquia. I mean he's had he's had
MPs really kind of lining up to so that he
needs to go, and that's in public, and then I'm
hearing this evening that the cabinet ministers are telling him
he needs to set a date for his departure. Well,
of course he doesn't have to go. I mean, he

(00:36):
does not have to go unless he's forced out by
the Labor Party. But there's nothing that would trigger necessarily
trigger a general election, so we could have him for
another three years and frankly, in terms of being replaced
by other members of the current government, he might be
the least worst I don't know, better the devil you know.

Speaker 1 (00:54):
Well, the reason I jist said you could be responsible
for the demise of Sakia Starmer, you have taken you
and your father, I think, have taken the government to court,
the Labor government to court effectively over the fairness of
the inheritance text. Could that be the straw that breaks
the camel's back if that was to come out on
the next day or two.

Speaker 2 (01:15):
I mean, it could be the case was about, gosh,
the kind of middle of March and they have to
announce their verdict within either three months or twelve weeks. Well,
you know we're not far off that, And it could
be he's under such pressure, mind you. I think if
members of the Cabinet are saying it needs to go,
that probably will hold greater sway than us. But if

(01:38):
it's found out that the government have acted unlawfully or
you know, against their own promises, I mean, that's a
pretty difficult bridge to cross for somebody who was Director
of Public Prosecutions and really pride themselves on doing the
right thing and following legal process.

Speaker 1 (01:54):
Talk about of farming, I like farmers here in New Zealand.
You're an arable farmer north of London suffering badly from
the fuel and fertilizer crisis. If that isn't bad enough,
you've got the triple wheremy because you've got drought and
spring and that's the worst time in the farming calendar.
You normally get some spring rains to kick things off.

(02:15):
You've only had thirty mills since February.

Speaker 2 (02:19):
That's right, those lovely warm spring rains that you know,
the early April showers. April showers bring mayflowers. Well, we've
had almost no rainfall at all. Yes, since since the
end of February and into rain we've been normally expecting
three or four times that amount and this and for
us this time begin know, we're if we're thinking about
what the crop needs, there's lots of different nutrients, but

(02:42):
actually it needs the rainfall to move that loose nutrients
around and make them accessable to the plant. So there's
a lot of a lot of crops looking pretty stunted,
pretty poor. They're wilting away or or they're rushing. They're
rushing through the growth stages and rushing to kind of
put the to produce a seed, and course there'll be
fewer seeds, they'll be smaller than the will be correspondingly diminished.

(03:04):
So it's not a great time, mind you. In the
northwestern in Scotland, they've only just come out of an
incredibly incredibly unseasonably wet period, so we're only a tiny
islands as you well know, Jenny, But we can our
people who are who are completely flooded out in one
area and you know, you drive tw hundred and fifty
miles perhaps, and where we are in the East, we're

(03:25):
absolutely baked. The ground is parts of big cracks in
the soil, and we're studying even the smallest cloud with
anticipation of just a drop of rain, even a heavy
dew would do.

Speaker 1 (03:36):
Right now, since we last chattered about three weeks ago,
I think it was how much movement have we seen
fuel and fertilizer prises?

Speaker 2 (03:46):
Yeah, gosh, I mean a huge amount. I mean, with
our red diesel prices have more than doubled, and they
don't seem to be I mean, prices go up, but
they grow up but don't seem to come down that easily.
But the actual issue I think is that is that
the world grain prices haven't moved that much. I mean,
in the in during the you know, early Ukraine period,

(04:09):
we had obviously fertilizer on fuel went up, but so
did grain correspondingly, and it wasn't a bad time for
us as farmers. But fuel and furt has gone through
the roof, and grain is just kind of grumbling along
pretty much where it's been for the last twelve months.
There's there's there's not really been a huge amount of movements,
so that's it's going to be crippling, I think for
farmers around the world. But here in the UK we're

(04:30):
on very narrow margins anyway, and with this weather it's
it's going to be enough to push people over the edge.
And with the inheritance tax changes just having come in
on the sick of April, those people who are pushed
over the edge, they'll be oh gosh, there'll be we've
we've we've got We've got a lot going on here
in the a lot of cause to be to be

(04:50):
concerned in UK agriculture, and it feels in the in
the country as well.

Speaker 1 (04:55):
Actually yeah, but we know tears from the British farmers.
I would think if Sakia Starmer got the heave hope,
just finally you are an arable farmer. But have you
sort of and I guess you have. Every farmer does
look at diversification. Could you go into full time livestock
farming for instance?

Speaker 2 (05:12):
Yeah, I mean we we we bring in four or
five hundred years in the winter time to run across
our stubbles and our cover crops, you know, and we
have run we have run our own sheep in the past, cattle,
et cetera. We're quite close to a big city, so
we could, you know, we could, we could. There's a
number of things that we could do, uh, you know,

(05:33):
and and and we have. Perhaps that's something we can
talk about another time. But it's challenging that, you know,
with with profit margins so tight offering, isn't the seed
money to start those other ventures available? But but yeah,
a lot of people doing interesting and pretty maverick things,
but it doesn't take away from the fact that that

(05:57):
of the actual, you know, the actual travesty, that that
you can't make money from producing food, something people need
every day.

Speaker 1 (06:03):
Exactly. You could always grow that most lucrative of crops houses,
but then that would ruin the farm, wouldn't it.

Speaker 2 (06:10):
Tom.

Speaker 1 (06:11):
Hey gotta go, Thank you very much for your time,
and we'll chat again in a few weeks and we'll
see if Sirkia Starmer is still the British Prime Minister.

Speaker 2 (06:19):
Unlikely, but who knows, who knows