Paul Rice, a partner at Wright Hassall in the farming and rural business unit, has just been elected chair of the Warwickshire branch of the National Farmers’ Union.
It is not the first time a professional has held the post, but he is the first solicitor to do so and that gives him a unique approach to the role.
He says: “I was asked to be a member of the steering group of the Rural Hub about 18 months ago and then attended the annual meeting of the NFU as a guest. There was, at the time, a lack of a vice-chairman and I was elected into the post by not saying no! The chairmanship soon followed.”
Rice was bought up close to agriculture as his father managed a wholesale meat business running slaughter houses across the country.
He qualified as a solicitor with a practice in the West Country which had a large agricultural client base. But being a little too sedentary for Rice he signed up for the British Army.
Rice says: “I had always been interested in the forces and going in as a lawyer meant I just had to do a three and a half week course at Sandhurst and emerged as a captain!"
The really big move of his career, however, came in the late 1990s when he joined the Intervention Board, the public body which administered schemes under the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).
“We were bringing forward prosecutions under the CAP,” Rice says. “The most high profile was around the sale of black milk – milk which was not part of the quota but was being sold.
“Then, in 2001 DEFRA had been established and it created the Rural Payment Agency to deal with paying 90 per cent of the CAP in England. It was a major restructuring because the department was aiming to reduce from 3,000 people down to 1,300 on the back of a new computer system.
“At the same time there was a radical rethink of the way in which CAP was administered and that resulted in the introduction of the Single Payment System. It was, to say the least, quite an ambitious overhaul; the combination of the new system and scheme meant that the implementation of the SPS was, to say the least, troublesome.”
But it give Rice an intimate knowledge of the new system and the legislation governing it, and, luckily, before all the issues surrounding the SPS became critical, an opportunity arose to join Wright Hassall.
He adds: “Wright Hassall traditionally had strong agricultural links but wanted to engage more strongly with the rural community and its industries. They made me an offer; I truly was the gamekeeper turning poacher.
“I can remember addressing around 120 farmers at Moreton Morrell in December 2004 and I don’t think many of them realised the enormity of the payment system change and how it would affect them.
“Since the Second World War they had been paid by the Government to produce – and now they were going to be paid to look after the countryside.
“All of a sudden, without the insulation of the traditional system, they were going to be affected by world markets and I have to say that many of them looked extremely concerned.
“Farmers have always, to one extent or another, had to be business people but suddenly what is happening in China and India is beginning to have a knock-on effect. However, the industry has always had the ability to adapt and this has manifested itself by the way they have embraced the new market conditions.”
Rice will spend two years at the head of the county’s NFU. Overall, he feels positive about the agricultural scence - despite some problems, he finds it generally in good health.
