Suffolk has a proud agricultural heritage. Our farmers help feed the nation and our produce is exported all over the world. Agriculture remains a crucial part of our local economy.

Yet our farmers are now facing a perfect storm. Energy prices and other costs have soared, there are major labour and skills shortages, and businesses are drowning in regulations and red tape.

To compound matters, the Conservatives, in their desperation to secure any sort of good news, have signed trade deals which will ultimately shaft the UK farming industry. These trade deals will undercut farmers, lower animal welfare standards and add air miles to our food. So while they may offer up warm words, their actions are in stark contrast, and now they are actively harming an industry they claim to support.

This week, over 100 MPs wrote to supermarkets on a cross-party basis, urging them to have ‘Buy British’ sections on their websites. It is a decent suggestion, and I am surprised that just one Suffolk MP added their name to the letter. It may be a small change, but anything to help encourage the purchase of British produce is a good thing.

However, while this is a positive move, it feels like it is largely tinkering around the edges when there needs to be a serious, substantive plan to support the sector. We simply must be far more ambitious and far-reaching.

We can start by using public procurement to buy, produce and sell more local, sustainable and healthy British food. The next Labour government will ensure at least half the food the public sector buys will be locally produced or highly sustainable. That is £1.2 billion of public money that will be spent on quality food that is genuinely better for peoples’ health, supporting British farming as we do so.

Farmers also need the security to prepare for the future, planning ahead and investing in the right areas of the business. Yet, it is clear that the Government’s approach over the last few years of the Environmental Land Management (ELMs) rollout has not given them the confidence they need to do so. Farmers know better than anyone that a stable climate, healthy soils and clean water is critical for their businesses as well as the environment, and many are already transitioning their operations to low-carbon alternatives, but there will need to be incentives and stability to move further and faster.

Instead, we need to support agriculture with a fair deal for farmers, tackling the unfairness faced by tenant farmers, and encouraging new entrants into the farming sector. We can do this by putting tenant farmers on a fairer footing with landlords and allowing them to plan for the long term.

We also know that rural crime is on the rise with a surge in machinery and equipment thefts, livestock rustling and industrial fly-tipping, and rural communities are not immune from anti-social behaviour either. That is why Labour has pledged to recruit 1,000 police officers and PCSOs for the East of England to be rooted in our communities, whether that is bigger urban areas like Ipswich, or smaller villages that make up rural Suffolk.

Farmers have been taken for granted for too long, and we are all now facing the consequences of the agricultural sector being severely neglected. We should want to protect and enhance our farming tradition, helping it evolve to meet the needs of the future. To do that, it requires the Government to start giving farming the respect, support and focus it deserves. If they don’t, British farming as we know it simply won’t survive.