First though this morning, forget the weather’s impact on the cost of food, there are concerns that new European regulations on pesticides could massively increase our food bills. As we’ve reported here on Farming Today, the proposed changes would restrict the number of pesticides farmers can use. Now Shaun Rickard, a business economist from Cranfield School of Management, has put a price on those changes. Predicting at least a 10p rise on the cost of a loaf of bread, 3p on a litre of milk and 40p per kilo on pork. I asked him how he’d arrived at those figures.

Shaun Rickard (Cranfield School of Management)

Essentially, the proposals, and that’s all they are at the moment, were examined by an ADES and a Pesticide Safety Directorate and they came up with reductions in yields for wheat, potatoes and certain vegetables, under these proposed restrictions. It was therefore a matter for me, to apply those falling yields and changes in cost of production to individual farm businesses and I calculated that if those farms were to maintain their margins, prices would have to rise by about 100% across the board.