IN what he termed as a 'post critical' period in British farming, Germansweek beef farmer David Hill has been elected the new chairman of the Devon National Farmers' Union.

Mr Hill, 59, while recognising the terrible hardships and despair facing many farmers, said things were finally starting to look a little more promising for the industry.

He has pledged himself to redressing the imbalance between producers and retailers, which was seeing big supermarket chains posting multi-million pound profits while farmers slaved all week to end up poorer than when they were at the start.

'I hope we have just about gone through the worst of it. It's too late for some of them, but there are reasons to be cheerful,' he said.

Mr Hill outlined a slight improvement in the pig meat trade, and a penny on milk at the farm gate during the last six months.

'It's not a large amount and it's still below what it costs to produce it, but at least, for the first time in three years, it's gone in the right direction,' he said.

British beef, which he described as the safest in the EU, if not the world, was also starting to move now after five years toiling beneath the yoke of the BSE crisis.

The recent weather hasn't added to the little bit of cheer. Mr Hill said there were as many potatoes left rotting in the sodden ground as had been picked and winter sowing had not been done because it was next to impossible to get machinery into the fields.

'You can't complain about that, but it's not been helpful,' he said. 'It's not been a good year.'

Mr Hill sees the imbalance between producers and retailers as the root of farming's ills.

'The UK retail trade has steadily stripped the margin away from the farmers. I spend three and a quarter years producing a bullock — it's a massive investment, working all weathers — I sell it to a supermarket and he has three times the amount I'll get in his till before I even get paid.

'He buys it in a pack, has it delivered, put in his freezer for him even. They don't operate out of rusty corrugated iron sheds do they?

'My mission is to recover that margin. Farmers must cooperate with each other or they will be price-takers and not price-makers.

' It's a ludicrous business when you look at it. If people want the countryside to go on looking as it does and want access to British farm produce the farmers will have to get a larger slice of the cake,' he said.

'The present situation won't sustain him. I want to halt the slide, so the primary producer gets the recognition for his labour and investment.'

One of Mr Hill's major weapons in tackling that slide is to add value to farmers' products.

He has invested in a cutting plant — Triple S Ranch — which takes the carcasses from West Country farmers to produce fully-packaged and prepared meat, selling at a premium, keeping the added value in the West Country and the business in the control of producers.

Nearby is also the Abbey Vale Bakery which adds more value turning the meat into a wide range of products such as pies and pasties, available locally and nationally.

As a result Mr Hill reckons he has a better understanding than most of where the margins are and where farmers should be aiming during his year of office.

Another West Devon man, John Dawe, a hill farmer from Bere Ferrers, was elected vice-chairman.