Therese Coffey was on Wednesday booed by farmers after saying UK egg shortages had not been brought on by “market failure”, in her first look on the Nationwide Farmers’ Union convention as surroundings secretary.

In a bad-tempered onstage trade with NFU president Minette Batters, Coffey maintained that she was “not essentially seeing a market failure in poultry” after egg farmers in the reduction of manufacturing due to spiralling enter prices, resulting in empty grocery store cabinets.

Batters, who had referred to as for presidency to intervene to assist producers, retorted that “we had a billion much less eggs [produced] in 2022 [compared with 2021]” and “we’ve misplaced companies”. She later mentioned she “took actual exception to the secretary of state’s denial”.

The trade shaped a part of a testing go to to the NFU convention for Coffey, as farmers challenged her and farming minister Mark Spencer over a variety of issues linked to Brexit and excessive inflation, highlighting disillusionment in rural constituencies with current Conservative governments.

Farmers reserved a hotter reception for Labour chief Sir Keir Starmer, who on Tuesday insisted farming was “in [his] DNA” and that the UK “should not lose sight of farming as a enterprise”. 

Matthew Blair, a beef and sheep farmer in Cumbria, wrote on Twitter that he had been “very impressed with how properly [Starmer] spoke”.

The convention got here as retailers warned that fruit and vegetable shortages would final “for weeks” as dangerous climate in southern Europe and north Africa was compounded by a drop in home manufacturing outdoors peak season due to hovering vitality prices.

Coffey additional angered farmers by saying just about the shortages — which have to this point led three supermarkets to ration recent produce — that she “can’t management the climate in Spain”.

Marion Regan, managing director of fruit and arable growers Hugh Lowe Farms in Kent, mentioned on the occasion: “[Coffey] dismissed the empty cabinets . . . so I don’t suppose she does perceive the challenges dealing with the horticulture sector . . . That is concerning the wider prices.”

Farmers have been buffeted by pressures together with the gradual removing of EU-style subsidies, new checks on imports to the bloc, and spiralling costs for vitality, feed, labour and fertiliser.

These have led to gaps on grocery store cabinets over the previous yr, together with egg shortages in late 2022 after farmers lowered their laying flocks due to price will increase. UK egg manufacturing declined 7.8 per cent in 2022 to 869mn dozen from a yr earlier, in accordance with official information, and shortages are nonetheless being reported.

James Mottershead, a Shropshire poultry farmer and chair of the NFU’s poultry board, mentioned it was “disheartening” that the trade’s pleas to authorities “preserve falling on deaf ears”. He mentioned ministers “ought to use the powers that they’ve underneath the Agriculture Act to handle failures within the provide chain . . . and they need to get out on farms and see the issues”.

The shortage of eggs has been adopted by strain on fruit and greens this week, with Asda, Aldi and Morrisons rationing purchases of merchandise together with tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers.

Batters urged ministers to supply extra assist with growers’ vitality payments, however the authorities rejected her name so as to add them to the roster of “energy-intensive” industries requiring additional assist, saying it could “enhance prices for different invoice payers, together with households”.

The Division for Setting, Meals and Rural Affairs is reviewing the availability chains for dairy and pigs, the place farmers have additionally come underneath strain. Coffey informed the convention these critiques could be accomplished quickly.

She additionally received a uncommon spherical of applause when she mentioned she didn’t assist the reintroduction of apex predators, corresponding to lynx and wolves, a challenge supported by rewilding teams in several components of the UK.