An open letter to the Prime Minister, Andy Burnham

An open letter to the Prime Minister, Andy Burnham, to Ellie Chowns MP, and to those responsible for Britain's environment, farming, business, energy and the welfare of our children

Dear Prime Minister,

I am writing this as a small British flower farmer, a rural business owner and, perhaps most importantly, a mother.

This summer has been frightening.

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A dry and crispy flower field / parched soil / a bone dry river bed.

We are watching increasingly extreme heat, prolonged dry periods, depleted water supplies and wildfires become part of life in Britain. For those of us trying to grow crops for a living, climate change is not an abstract discussion about what might happen in 2050. It is happening in our fields now.

Plants are struggling. Water is becoming harder to secure. Crops that businesses have invested months of labour and thousands of pounds into can be lost in days.

And yet, as a country, we still seem to be reacting to each drought, heatwave or flood as though it is an isolated emergency rather than evidence that the way we build, farm, generate energy and manage water is no longer fit for the climate we now live in.

We need to change course, and we need to do it quickly.

I run a small flower farm in Herefordshire. Businesses like mine are trying to rebuild an industry that Britain has largely surrendered to imports.

British-grown flowers are not just a nice countryside extra. Small-scale flower farming is now a sector worth £33.6 million a year — a figure the Treasury only formally recognised this summer, when small-scale growers were finally awarded their own government economic classification codes. That recognition matters, but it needs to be the start of real support, not the end of the conversation.

The wider wedding industry alone is worth billions of pounds to the British economy.

When someone buys a bunch of British flowers, that money does not stop at the farm gate. We buy compost, seeds, plants, machinery, irrigation equipment, packaging, printing, fuel and professional services. We work with local florists and venues. We sell through independent shops. We employ people. We spend money in the communities in which we live.

Those pounds circulate through the British economy.

And yet 86% of the flowers sold in Britain are still imported.

British growers are trying to take a small portion of that market back, often competing with flowers grown in countries where producers benefit from different climates, energy costs, labour costs and government support.

At the same time, our own growers face increasingly unpredictable weather, rising costs and inadequate infrastructure. That is counterproductive.

If the government genuinely wants British businesses to grow, rural economies to thrive, supply chains to become more resilient and consumers to buy more British produce, then those businesses need a realistic chance of surviving.

And this issue goes far beyond flowers.

British farming and horticulture are under extraordinary pressure. The people producing our food, plants and flowers are trying to operate in an increasingly volatile climate while being expected to absorb the financial consequences largely on their own.

We should stop treating farming and horticulture simply as businesses occupying pieces of land. They are part of our national infrastructure.

So is water storage.

We do not simply have a shortage of water in Britain. We have a shortage of infrastructure capable of capturing and storing water when it falls. We can experience months of relentless winter rain, watch enormous quantities of water leave our landscape, and then find ourselves desperate for water the following summer. That makes no sense.

Government should launch a serious national programme to help farms and horticultural businesses construct reservoirs, install large-scale rainwater harvesting systems and invest in efficient irrigation. Planning for agricultural reservoirs should be simpler. Neighbouring farms should be supported to develop shared water-storage schemes.

Schools, offices, warehouses, factories and public buildings should capture rainfall from their roofs instead of simply funnelling it into drains. Every new development should be designed around retaining water as well as disposing of it. We need to start thinking decades ahead instead of waiting until reservoirs are low and issuing restrictions.

The same applies to energy.

Britain needs to move away from fossil fuels far faster. Every suitable new home built in this country should generate renewable energy. Every suitable new school, office, warehouse, supermarket, factory and public building should have solar generation designed into it as standard.

We are constructing enormous roofs across Britain whose only purpose is currently to keep the rain out. Why? Those roofs could be generating electricity.

New developments should also be designed around heat pumps, energy efficiency, battery storage and electric transport from the beginning rather than requiring enormously expensive retrofitting later. Existing homes and businesses need practical financial support to transition too.

The question should no longer be whether renewable technology is included in a new building. The question should be why it would ever be omitted.

Government must also do more to actively support British produce. Public procurement is an obvious place to start. Government departments, councils, schools, hospitals and publicly funded events should be expected to prioritise British food, flowers and horticultural produce where they are reasonably available.

British flowers should be used at government events. British plants should be used in publicly funded landscaping. British food should be supported throughout public procurement. We should also introduce clear country-of-origin labelling for cut flowers so consumers can make informed choices about what they are buying.

None of this requires Britain to turn its back on international trade. But there is a profound difference between participating in global trade and allowing ourselves to become almost entirely dependent upon imports.

Recent years should have taught us that resilient domestic supply chains matter. Food matters. Energy matters. Water matters. And domestic production matters.

There is another group who rarely have a voice in these discussions: our children.

When we argue about whether environmental policies are too expensive, we should ask what the alternative is going to cost them. They are the generation who will inherit the infrastructure we choose to build now. They will live with the consequences of water shortages, extreme heat, fires, flooding, food insecurity and biodiversity loss.

If we already know that the climate is changing, building houses today without renewable energy, adequate insulation and water resilience is not saving money. It is simply sending the bill to the next generation.

The same is true if we allow British farming and horticulture to disappear because adapting them looked too expensive. Once those businesses disappear, so do the skills, infrastructure and knowledge that sustain them. Rebuilding them later will be vastly harder.

What I would like to see from the government is not another statement about recognising the importance of British farming. I would like to see action:

A national agricultural water-storage programme.

Meaningful grants for reservoirs, rainwater harvesting and efficient irrigation.

Climate adaptation funding that small farms and horticultural businesses can actually access.

Solar generation becoming standard on every suitable new building.

A much faster transition away from fossil-fuel heating.

Country-of-origin labelling for flowers and plants.

Public procurement policies that actively support British producers.

And a long-term strategy for rebuilding British horticulture, building on this summer's SIC code recognition, rather than simply watching its market share disappear overseas.

Above all, I would like our political leaders to recognise something very simple: climate resilience is infrastructure. Reservoirs are infrastructure. Solar panels are infrastructure. Healthy soils are infrastructure. Farms are infrastructure. Local businesses and supply chains are infrastructure.

We would never knowingly allow our roads, electricity grid or communications networks to collapse and simply hope that the market eventually fixes them. Our ability to produce food and horticultural crops deserves the same seriousness.

I am not asking the government to protect businesses from every difficult year. Farming has never worked like that. I am asking the government to give businesses willing to invest, adapt, work and produce in Britain the infrastructure and policy environment that gives them a fighting chance.

Because if another decade passes before we take these issues seriously, the question may no longer be how we help British farming and horticulture adapt. It may be why we allowed so much of it to disappear in the first place.

And our children will be entitled to ask why, when the warning signs were already so obvious, we chose not to act.

Kelly Munford 

Flower farmer and small business owner 

Herefordshire

📧 kelly@wyegrow.com

💐 Instagram: @wyegrow

🌐 www.wyegrow.com

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