00:00 Kent is known as the garden of England. According to the county council, 16,000 people are employed
00:08 in the sector. But the industry says they're under threat.
00:12 James Smith runs a fruit farm near Maidstone. He was at the Eastern Ireland conference calling
00:17 for shorter supply chains between farms and supermarkets.
00:21 So the supermarkets are sticking to their model of paying suppliers less whilst charging
00:26 the consumer more. What I'm advocating is actually becoming truly vertically integrated
00:31 so we have our own retail. That way we control all of the costs and we can enjoy the benefits
00:37 of that by keeping all of those at that margin in our business.
00:43 Consumer price index unexpectedly eased this week, particularly fuelled by a slowing down
00:48 of the rate that some food and drinks cost. The industry though are reporting many issues,
00:54 particularly in the last few years with Brexit, the pandemic and war in Ukraine.
01:00 Fuel has a huge impact because they need it in order to do everything from powering or
01:05 heating if it's a food or if it's a livestock, all the way through to processing any of the
01:10 food, through to even their supply chain to get it to them. A lot of people are bringing
01:13 in their fertiliser, are coming in from overseas, that has an impact on the cost of everything.
01:17 Fuel underpins all of that and then when we're needing to heat things or keep something stable
01:21 it's even more of an impact.
01:22 The consortium brings together three universities.
01:26 The idea behind it is to do three things. One is to encourage collaborations, particularly
01:30 around research. One is to develop a positive research culture, so share training, do mentoring
01:36 and so forth. And the third is about advocacy, so making sure that the voice of our region
01:41 and our universities is heard on a national scale.
01:45 Well the food is going down the treats at this conference today and this is what it's
01:49 like looking at food in a time of crisis. Looking at what goes into our everyday foods,
01:54 connecting the industry with academia and seeing how farmers across the south east can
01:58 be more sustainable going forward.
02:01 The consensus here is it's a race against time to make the industry more sustainable
02:07 and getting people to shop more local, but not everyone can afford that.
02:12 And I think a big thing is if you give the local supermarkets their own autonomy to sort
02:17 out what's happening in their own local community, that would go a big way rather than somebody
02:22 sitting at head office telling them how they need to operate with their customers. It's
02:26 a different way of thinking I think.
02:29 The south east faces huge challenges going forward and there were lots of ideas, but
02:35 for a rosy future, farmers will hope that these come into fruition.
02:39 Gabriel Morris for KMTV in Canterbury.
