The National Farmers Union (NFU) has alleged that British power suppliers may be wrongly charging agricultural businesses extra on top of wholesale energy prices, putting food security in danger.
NFU has written to the top UK energy firms to find out why farmers and growers are seeing steep standing charge rises without proper explanation.
“We understand that the UK energy markets are experiencing huge volatility, and we know farmers and growers have been faced with large increases in energy prices as well as difficulty in securing new contract prices when their contract renewal is up,” NFU said in a statement.
“We think there is good evidence to suggest power companies may be wrongly judging farmer and grower businesses as high risk and therefore charging more – on top of high wholesale energy costs.
“We also see significant uplift in standing charges that are not properly explained, when combined with increased rates, has meant credit limits have not been able to keep pace making it even harder for businesses to secure energy contracts.”
NFU will also seek ways to help more farmers to access the renewables market and engaging with the supply chain to support members faced with ‘enormous’ energy and input inflation.