A NEW farming organisation has been set up to represent the interests of the industry after what it claims is widespread dissatisfaction with the Government and with existing bodies such as the NFU.

Farm was launched this week with the backing of multi-millionaire Zac Goldsmith, the editor of Ecologist magazine, and an organic farmer who funded an unsuccessful High Court action to force the Government to hold a full public inquiry into foot-and-mouth.

He is the son of the late James Goldsmith, industrialist and founder of the anti-euro UK Independence party.

The first action of the new body was to present its own draft Farm Bill to DEFRA at a demonstration outside the Ministry's London headquarters.

The demonstrators also displayed 11 empty boiler suits to represent the 200,000 farmers they say have left the industry at the rate of 11 per day over the last 50 years.

Farm claims a new farm bill is needed because the Government has no long-term coherent plan for farming and food production and the Curry report has failed to address the real causes of the industry's crisis.

The draft Farm Bill has five key demands:

l National food security based on national farming rather than reliance on global markets.

l Sustaining the industry through fair farmgate prices.

l Promoting both large and small farms to sustain rural communities.

l rewarding for farming's environmental goods.

l Promoting "fresh-blood" entering the industry.

Founder member John Sanderson, an arable and dairy farmer from Suffolk, said: "The Government seems totally unconcerned that working farmer and farm numbers are plummeting.

They expect to see 50,000 farmers forced off the land over the next few years.

That would be a disaster for the countryside and for rural communities.

We urge farmers to join us and fight for a viable future for farming."

According to Farm, agriculture is crying out for a new body to represent its true interests.

Farm claims the NFU has worked to the advantage of large "agribusiness" rather than small and medium-sized enterprises.

A recent survey of 533 farming families commissioned by Farm found that more than one-quarter of those surveyed

felt no existing body adequately represented their interests and two-thirds thought there was a need for a new body.

The NFU responded to criticism of its record by claiming it did work for the interests of all farmers and pointing to its lobbying activities in Westminster and Europe and to the recent success in raising farmgate milk prices.

An NFU spokesman said: "The last thing agriculture wants is another body.

More than ever the industry needs to be unified to deal with the huge pressure and agenda it faces."

Farm spokesman Robin Maynard said the new organisation had yet to establish a network of contacts in and around Cumbria but added that responses to its survey indicated a good deal of interest in a new farming body.

He also said Farm would hold a public meeting in the county within the next few weeks.

l Farm can be contacted at www.farm.org.uk or on 020-7352-7928.