The last few years have seen some of the biggest changes in agriculture for decades. Major change is always difficult, bringing strain and anxiety, and FCN is encountering many who are finding it a very stressful and uncertain time.
The context in which farming exists today will go on changing. FCN wants to see a successful and vibrant farming community with farming families who feel valued and encouraged and who are able to earn a living from their farming. Our farming community has a lot to be proud of in its achievements in providing safe, healthy and nutritious food, in caring for and enhancing the beautiful British countryside, in providing habitats and food sources for many forms of wildlife and in taking a valuable part in the life of rural communities.
However, the global trend for farmers to receive an inadequate share of the consumer price, whether for wheat, milk, cocoa or bananas, will be very hard to reverse. It is probable that more and more farming families will face difficult choices. Sadly, for some there will be much pain with livelihood, home, identity and the family’s future all under threat. Often a farmer is someone defined by their vocation and the prospect of losing that can be almost impossible to bear.
In FCN we are improving our practice, continuing our training and recruiting new volunteers to provide the support that is needed both now and in the foreseeable future. FCN is also building a broad base of committed supporters to carry our work forward.
In FCN we seek to be well known and welcomed in farming circles. We seek to be deemed acceptable and credible in the eyes of official, commercial and voluntary bodies, and able to speak for individuals and disadvantaged farmers in general. We seek to be organisationally effective, robustly funded and diligent in monitoring our work, discerning needs and devising appropriate responses. In FCN we are committed to continuing our work for as long as we are needed, and no longer.
FCN’s work is a Christian response to the problems facing farming people, a service available to all in the farming community of any faith or none. Click here to download FCN’s Ethos Statement.
FCN wants to support the farming community as they go through this challenging period and we invite you to stand with them too.