The audience at the Sentry Conference at Chilford Hall, Linton

SOME of the UK’s big-hitters from the worlds of agriculture, business, research and retailing gathered at Chilford Hall in Cambridgeshire this week for the annual Sentry farming conference. SARAH CHAMBERS went along.

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FARMERS have spent years trying to get on the right side of consumers.

At times, their chances of success have looked about as hopeful as England’s chances of walking away from the football World Cup with the winning trophy – without breaking into the trophy cabinet.

But suddenly, as if by magic, they appear to have attained that elusive goal.

At least, that is, according to food and grocery expert Joanne Denny-Finch OBE, the chief executive of IGD.

She should know. She and her team devote a lot of their time to studying consumers on behalf of the food industry.

“Farming, as a profession, is seen as in tune with the spirit of our times,” she told Wednesday’s Sentry farming conference in Cambridgeshire.

“Our research shows the public view farmers as hard working, down to earth, professional and vital to the future.

“That’s why retailers and manufacturers around the world are using videos of ther farmer suppliers online and in their advertising.”

These words should have been music to the ears of the assembled East Anglian farmers and farming professionals. Farmers as consumer pin-ups rather than for dart board practice? A revolution indeed.

To underline the point about this remarkable level of consumer support, she spelt it out to them: “It’s a great asset,” she said.

The theme for the annual event this year was The Necessity for Change and it was one taken up by a series of speakers as diverse as UEA professor of climate change Mike Hulme to industry heavyweight and former CBI director general Lord Digby Jones, who, it turns out, is not very keen on farming subsidies but still went down a storm.

There was some market economics to chew on with Tom Vosa of the National Australia Bank, and some practical farming tips to digest with National Cereals Pathologist and director of Brooms Barn Research Bill Clark. Mr Clark braved the afternoon slot following Lord Jones’ charismatic tour de force reminiscing about his time in office under ex-Prime Minister Gordon Brown as Minister of State for UK Trade and Investment. From high politics to fungicide use in cereals – it could really only happen at a farming event with the breadth and depth of the Sentry conference.

National Farmers’ Union senior adviser Gail Soutar capped the afternoon with her thoughts on the future of the Common Agricultural Policy.

What farmers made of Ms Denny-Finch’s revelation that in Canada, it was possible to trace your fish back to the boat, time and place where it was caught, is difficult to say, but it did prompt a quip from conference chairman David Richardson about whether they also knew their names.

We learnt that nine in 10 people believe that British farmers deserve the full support of the public and almost nine in 10 feel that Britain should be more self-sufficient in food. Seven in 10 believe they have a big role to play in feeding a growing world population.

But alongside this, Ms Denny-Finch warned of a nervousness about taking risks with our food.

They found the GM debate “confusing”, she said, and warned that as new food technologies emerge, they need to be explained “clearly, openly and convincingly”.

On the theme of genetic modification, fears were expressed at various points in the conference that the European Union stance was likely to cause us to lag behind in the quest for more food per acre of land, using less inputs.

There were other big questions to consider at the conference, and none bigger than that of climate change.

Professor Hulme from the UEA called for new thinking on the entire climate change debate.

Instead of trying to get worldwide political consensus and an “idealistic” approach, the author of Why we disagree about climate change urged a more practical approach, based on “climate pragmatism”. He also felt too much emphasis was being placed on CO2 emissions when other gases were also causing problems.

The current efforts to defuse the risks of climate change are leading us nowhere, he argued. With deep and irreeoncilable divisions between the world’s superpower nations, climate change treaties were not getting us the results we are seeking.

“We have locked ourselves into seeking an unachievable goal – climate stabilisation,” he said.

“It is a goal which is based on a scientific narrative that cannot bear the weight of expectation and a goal which is to be delivered through hubristic centralised management of the planet and its inhabitants.”.

Climate change does have a “mobilising power”, he admitted, but he added: “It’s an amazingly plastic idea that can be moulded and re-shaped to suit your interests.”

Our ultimate goal was not to stop climate change, he said.

“We have mistaken the means for the end. Our goal is surely to ensure that the basic human needs of the world’s growing population are adequately met,” he said.

That meant living within our techno-ecological means and not beyond them, he said.

He argued in favour of lowering our ambitions and seeking small steps. This , paradoxically, would increase the likelihood that we can deliver on at least some of our aspirations for a better world, he said.

What we need are the “technologies of humility”, and these would offer us the best prospects for taming the risks of climate change.

Even before climate change, there was also the global downturn for delegates to consider.

Tom Vosa, head of Market Economics, Europe, at the National Australia Bank, looked at the world economic crisis, and gave his own sanguine assessment.

Yes, the global economy was going through “a soft patch”. It might be quite a “rough year” for cereals, and Europe would have a “cyclical slowdown”.

But he told the audience: “We have to put it in context: this actually is not a bad recession.”

He said agricultural commodity prices were becoming increasinglyinfluenced by oil prices.

High and volatile oil prices could therefore contribute to higher and more volatile agricultural prices.

Another factor was the US dollar as it was the currency used for many agricultural commodies. A strong dollar or a weak dollar therefore affected international commodity prices.

Mr Richardson, in introducing the speakers, pointed out that farmers, despite a reputation as a sector which resisted change, had, in fact, embraced many changes over the decades.

With only one chance to “get it right” in every trading year, it was inevitable farmers would be cautious, but they had achieved great advances in productivity.

The challenge now was to produce even more food with less inputs.

But the European restrictions on the use of new technologies in farming were “seriously hampering our ability to respond to a rapidly-changing world”, he warned.