BRITISH farmers have been told they must fight for a renaissance in the industry's fortunes by achieving; more from the market-place.

In his closing address the president, Mr Ben Gill, said the launch of the British farm standard - the little red tractor logo for food - was one of the most important developments of the farming year. Its spread to milk and to processed foods was a major success and was one example of what the industry was doing to help itself.

But all farmers and growers must look at their buying and selling arrangements to make sure the benefits of higher end-prices returned to the primary producer and did not stick in the hands of those elsewhere in the chain.

In addition, the rest of the food chain had to wake up to the value of home production and the need for farmers to get a fair return.

Mr Gill, said: "We farmers and growers must use every possible way to improve our market position but our customers must realise that they are killing the geese that lay their golden eggs.

"Britain's farmers have worked tirelessly to meet our customers' requirements more effectively. We have produced traceability, we have delivered farm assurance and we continue to improve the quality of our products, already the best in the world. We have worked tirelessly to meet shoppers' demands on safety, animal welfare and the environment."

In spite of these achievements, said Mr Gill, it was deeply disturbing that society's relations with farming were distorted by so many myths.

"The popular myth that farmers are destroying the countryside is perhaps the most offensive of all,"he said. "The hard facts are that the latest DETR figures show farmers planted 10,000km of hedges in the 1990s and restored 13,000km of previously derelict hedges - enough to go round the British coastline five times - 750,000 hectares of English farmland are in agri-environment schemes, an area twice the size of Kent."

He urged members to make use of an advice leaflet on environmental facts produced by the NFU to argue the corner for agriculture. "Farming must be judged on the facts from today and not the myths of yesterday."

Closing his speech, he told delegates that he hoped there were glimmers of a fragile recovery on the horizon The crisis had claimed many victims and brought about radical change within the industry and at the NFU too.

"Clearly there is still much to do but there is plenty to be proud of," said Mr Gill. "We must unite to kill the myths, to use our muscle and our brain to achieve a fair market return for our product and we must unite to keep Britain farming."

l Following the national dairy farm assured scheme's decision to provide independent inspections of its 18,000 producer members, bringing it into line with other farm assurance schemes, the little red tractor will begin to appear in Sainsbury's supermarkets from February 19