News information
- 5th February 2007:
Mutual Advantage
This month the Manx National Farmers’ Union signed another five-year agreement with NFU Mutual Insurance. The agreement ensures that the Manx NFU, the political wing of Manx agriculture, is able to fight effectively for the future of Manx farming - a future that affects everyone. Everyone, that is, who loves local food; who enjoys the beautiful Manx countryside; who values food security; or who recognises the importance of our farmer managed landscape to recruitment in our finance sector.
Those of us who appreciate the major contribution of Manx farming to Island life should give NFU Mutual a round of applause. Manx farmers can now afford to retain their voice within government and within the media while they face the extreme challenge of the next few years. A challenge most business people will understand - the coming of the free market.
If the red meat derogation is lost in January 2011 Manx farming will only survive because it has managed to pull off a spectacular volte-face. It will have recreated its relationship with the Manx consumer, developed new high value markets in the UK, and negotiated a support package with the Treasury that recognises the importance of food production to the Island’s economy, even while acknowledging the diseconomies of scale that afflict Manx processing units when they compete in the Euro-zone. While many of the Island’s businesses have been able to benefit from new technology and computers, there’s only so far this can help in the ploughing of a field, the sorting of spuds, or the rearing of a prize Aberdeen Angus.
But why has NFU Mutual done it? Why has a top 10 UK insurance company made such a generous financial contribution to the Manx National Farmers’ Union.
The reason is simple. They always have.
Seven farmers formed the Mutual in 1910 in a Stratford-upon-Avon teashop, at a time when agriculture was facing another enormous upheaval, and shortly after the creation of the English NFU. Ever since that time the NFU and NFU Mutual Insurance have been inseparable - the NFU fighting to ensure farming remains central to rural life - NFU Mutual insuring farm businesses and providing an excellent quality mutual insurance service.
In 1910, the Mutual was an upstart business – laughed at by the financial services world. Now, the Mutual manages assets of over £10 billion and is the insurer of choice for a wide range of businesses and individuals - not just farmers. Last year they were declared the UK Auto Insurer of the Year, and on the Isle of Man an increasing range of clients are turning to the Mutual for all their insurance needs.
The story of the Mutual is one of courage, innovation, and hard work. The seven founding farmers sold insurance from a makeshift office in a farmhouse, whenever they could spare time away from ploughing and sowing.
The idea that farmers could run something so financially complex as an insurance business was scoffed at by other brokers who thought a couple of barn fires could wipe out the companies assets over night. But the farmers defied their critics and the acorn sowed in 1910 has become the giant oak tree we see advertising on telly and in the glossy press today.
The Mutual was formed at a time when farming was facing decline. The glory days ended in 1875 when the first cheap food imports started to invade Britain. The first kick came from America, whose transcontinental railways allowed the US to export wheat to Britain, then in the 1880s the first refrigerated ship full of Australian beef arrived in London. Australia, New Zealand, and the US could all produce meat more cheaply than British farmers, and the UK dairy industry came under attack from Danish butter and cheese.
Since then little has changed, except that British farmers have tried to gain what economies of scale they can by upsizing their farms as their neighbours go out of business. In Cambridgeshire, for example, enormous tracts of land are now given over to the growing of potatoes, leeks, and carrots, and the barley barons have become infamous.
Manx agriculture has changed too. There are now fewer farmers (about one a month leaves the industry) and the remaining farms are larger – but at heart all Manx farms are still family farms.
If we’re to face the free market future then as a population we must make a choice.
Do we want to see a small number of farm businesses running comparatively very large farms, gaining efficiencies from knocking out hedgerows to create larger fields, and through intensification of livestock rearing methods? Or do we want to retain a thriving rural economy of many family farms, stimulating and supporting local village communities, managing the beautiful countryside that means so much to most Manx citizens, and providing habitats for our wild life and birds?
The Manx NFU believes that the future of Manx agriculture is in the maintenance of the family farm. Efficiency is important in any business, but Manx farming is already run on a shoestring. Food security is essential for an Island community, and our landscape, which is among the most beautiful in Britain and which is managed by farmers, should be protected for future generations.
NFU Mutual Insurance has shown its commitment to the Isle of Man, and the Manx people, by ensuring the Manx NFU has the funds to fight for the future of our Island’s agriculture, and for the incredible landscape in which we all live.
END
Mutual Advantage
This month the Manx National Farmers’ Union signed another five-year agreement with NFU Mutual Insurance. The agreement ensures that the Manx NFU, the political wing of Manx agriculture, is able to fight effectively for the future of Manx farming - a future that affects everyone. Everyone, that is, who loves local food; who enjoys the beautiful Manx countryside; who values food security; or who recognises the importance of our farmer managed landscape to recruitment in our finance sector.
Those of us who appreciate the major contribution of Manx farming to Island life should give NFU Mutual a round of applause. Manx farmers can now afford to retain their voice within government and within the media while they face the extreme challenge of the next few years. A challenge most business people will understand - the coming of the free market.
If the red meat derogation is lost in January 2011 Manx farming will only survive because it has managed to pull off a spectacular volte-face. It will have recreated its relationship with the Manx consumer, developed new high value markets in the UK, and negotiated a support package with the Treasury that recognises the importance of food production to the Island’s economy, even while acknowledging the diseconomies of scale that afflict Manx processing units when they compete in the Euro-zone. While many of the Island’s businesses have been able to benefit from new technology and computers, there’s only so far this can help in the ploughing of a field, the sorting of spuds, or the rearing of a prize Aberdeen Angus.
But why has NFU Mutual done it? Why has a top 10 UK insurance company made such a generous financial contribution to the Manx National Farmers’ Union.
The reason is simple. They always have.
Seven farmers formed the Mutual in 1910 in a Stratford-upon-Avon teashop, at a time when agriculture was facing another enormous upheaval, and shortly after the creation of the English NFU. Ever since that time the NFU and NFU Mutual Insurance have been inseparable - the NFU fighting to ensure farming remains central to rural life - NFU Mutual insuring farm businesses and providing an excellent quality mutual insurance service.
In 1910, the Mutual was an upstart business – laughed at by the financial services world. Now, the Mutual manages assets of over £10 billion and is the insurer of choice for a wide range of businesses and individuals - not just farmers. Last year they were declared the UK Auto Insurer of the Year, and on the Isle of Man an increasing range of clients are turning to the Mutual for all their insurance needs.
The story of the Mutual is one of courage, innovation, and hard work. The seven founding farmers sold insurance from a makeshift office in a farmhouse, whenever they could spare time away from ploughing and sowing.
The idea that farmers could run something so financially complex as an insurance business was scoffed at by other brokers who thought a couple of barn fires could wipe out the companies assets over night. But the farmers defied their critics and the acorn sowed in 1910 has become the giant oak tree we see advertising on telly and in the glossy press today.
The Mutual was formed at a time when farming was facing decline. The glory days ended in 1875 when the first cheap food imports started to invade Britain. The first kick came from America, whose transcontinental railways allowed the US to export wheat to Britain, then in the 1880s the first refrigerated ship full of Australian beef arrived in London. Australia, New Zealand, and the US could all produce meat more cheaply than British farmers, and the UK dairy industry came under attack from Danish butter and cheese.
Since then little has changed, except that British farmers have tried to gain what economies of scale they can by upsizing their farms as their neighbours go out of business. In Cambridgeshire, for example, enormous tracts of land are now given over to the growing of potatoes, leeks, and carrots, and the barley barons have become infamous.
Manx agriculture has changed too. There are now fewer farmers (about one a month leaves the industry) and the remaining farms are larger – but at heart all Manx farms are still family farms.
If we’re to face the free market future then as a population we must make a choice.
Do we want to see a small number of farm businesses running comparatively very large farms, gaining efficiencies from knocking out hedgerows to create larger fields, and through intensification of livestock rearing methods? Or do we want to retain a thriving rural economy of many family farms, stimulating and supporting local village communities, managing the beautiful countryside that means so much to most Manx citizens, and providing habitats for our wild life and birds?
The Manx NFU believes that the future of Manx agriculture is in the maintenance of the family farm. Efficiency is important in any business, but Manx farming is already run on a shoestring. Food security is essential for an Island community, and our landscape, which is among the most beautiful in Britain and which is managed by farmers, should be protected for future generations.
NFU Mutual Insurance has shown its commitment to the Isle of Man, and the Manx people, by ensuring the Manx NFU has the funds to fight for the future of our Island’s agriculture, and for the incredible landscape in which we all live.
END
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